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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZBA-02/03/2005 Hearing 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 TOWN OF SOUTHOLD ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS COUNTY OP SUPPOLK : STATE OF NEW YORK TOWN 0 ~ S OUT HO L D ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS SPECIAL MEETING Southold Town Hall 53095 Main Road Southold, New York February 3, 2005 9:30 a.m. Board Members PresenE : RUTH OLIVA, Chairwoman VINCENT ORLANDO, Vice Chairman MICHAEL SIMON, JAMES DINIZIO, LINDA KOWALSKI, Absent: Board Member Board Member Board Secretary Gerard Goehringer, Board Member 'ORIGINA COURT REPORTING AND TRANSCRIPTION SERVICE {631) 878--8047 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 2S ORIENT FIRE DISTRICT ZB 5408 PUBLIC HEARING continued CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: We are here so we can hear some technical testimony from Mr. Scheibel and Hr. Furrier. I would appreciate that any comments that are ,going te De made tonight are only on the technical aspects only. We have heard from most of you and we realll' appreciate your comments and we will take everything in~o consideration. Tonight the Board has ~o hear the technical merits on each side. Mr. Scheibel would yen like te sYart tonight? HR. BOYD: I want to provide the Board with several studies that have been done by Mr. Scheibel back in March, 2004. This was a study that was presented and available at a meeting that we had at the Orient firehouse. And we had a more recent one, which really just brings that eno a little DiE up to date. Mr. Scheibel, maybe you can take a momen~ to give your qualifications to this Board. MR. SCHEIBEL: I have a slide for you. MR. BOYD: We will let the slide do the talking. MR. SCHEIBEL: I'm Bill Scheibel, I own Eastern Long Island Electronics. We're located in Quogue. We're a full line Motorola dealership. That's not just selling radios. The difference is tha~ yes, of course, anyone who is in business to sell something wants to make money, Out also we're what's called a national MSS, which means we're authorized by Motorola to carry the Motorola logo on my card, my ID, my stationery, because Motorola empowers me to represent them. I go to all uhe specialized training, I have all the proper test equipment, all the proper software packages, everything I need to be able to do design maintenance installation for communications systems, as per Motorola's guidelines, I'm also a Kenwood dealer, a Midland and an Exxon dealer. So with anything today, you go into car dealers, ycu don't just have one car, you have many cars, well, I have a lot of radios. This is all we do. Part of my contract with Motorola is I'm maintaining E9-11 for all the east end towns, sc, when you pick up the phone out here, and you dial[ E9 11, you're using a system that I maintain far Motorola. It gives you an idea of our technical ability and our credenuials, I hope. 2 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 ]8 19 2O 21 22 23 24 25 Some of our clients are Southold Police Department, Southampton Police, East Hampton Police, Riverhead, the sheriff's and others further to the west, which are probably of no consequence to us here. I am their radio company. Fire departments, some you may recognize, some you don't, they span all the way from west of Exit 62 on the expressway, all the way to the far reaches of the forks. When these fire departments need communication systems, I'm the person who does the work. Whether it's EMS, whether it's Riverhead, Southampton, Flanders, all departments all run individual ambulance, private ambulance company, I'm also their radio company. This will give you some idea of where my background comes from and uhe work I do. This is what I ~o, this is ali I do. When the fire department spoke to me, and where they got my name -- probably from another fire departmen~ would make sense -- nhey asked me to ~ake a look at what I could do to improve their overall communications. They had dispatch problems, they had problems in scene management, uhere were fire safeUy issues, fire ground opera~ions. As we move through the presentation, I'm trying to explain what some of those ~hings mean, so more ~han just words. Pare of my training and the organizations I belong to is not just wit~ Motorola, which is the technical side of what has to be accomplished, but I'm also a member of the NFPA, which is the Nauional Fire Protection Association. I am also a New York State certified incident commander, which means that I know how to go to a scene and manage communications based on New York SEa~e standards. So in's not just my ~echnical background speaking, Out in terms of how to improve the overall communications, I call upon the other things I've done, the training I have, nhe other background I have. Additionally, the fire department asked me to look at mutual aid, which is where our fire department has to assist another department. In this day and age in a volunteer based organization, there aren't enough resources ~o comban every evil that a fire department is presented with. So there's a thing called mutual aid, so you can be called in by an adjoining Oepartment to assist you or call adjoining February 3, 2005 1 2 3 6 7 8 9 i0 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Oepartments to assist you. Additionally, there's ~he fundamental resource called paging, which is what the system is used for to get the fireman alerted to the fact that his services are required, so we took a look at all that. So what were the goals? What I'd like to do is kind of have everybody through the course of this get a better understanding of fire communications. This is not just pick up a two-way radio and talk to somebody at the other end. This is not what we do with our very handy cell phones. This is more of a sommunication system, and what the fire department would do is find out what's available and how to make better use of it to support the mission of fighting fires and running ambulance calls, because obviously across the years we've seen technology change a lot whether it's our VCR in our home or whatever iu is, we're not doing things the same way we did them 10 years ago. Ten years ago there was no such thing as an I-Pod for instance. Those same technologies all come to play when it comes to public safety. What they asked ine to Oo is use those technologies to try to solve the communications issues they had, but obviously they wan~ed to keep their costs contained. There's a lot of ways to design systems. We know thau from computer systems. You have heard of super compuners that can process millions and millions of instructions per second, then we have the desktop compuuer in our home or my laptop over there, they can both add, subtracE, mulniply and Oivide. Do I need a crazy super computer to add, suOtract, multiply and divide? Well, obviously no. My lapuop is very effecuive and of course costs a fraction of that. So one of the things the department asked me to look at was also to ~eep the cost contained in terms of what I was g:}ing to deliver to them in uerms of a solution. The current situation, and uhis was done over an amount of time where I actually ~noni~ored their fire communication, I have several inonitoring stations around Long Island, I have access no those sites where I can listen to the things ~hat go on. Even if I'm not located a~ that particular geography. There were missed calls, there were definitely firema~ safety issues where a fireman's communication was not heard. February 3, 2005 1 2 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 25 Obviously in terms of fire safety, a missed call, any missed call is a problem because that fireman, that radio, that chief who needs to get in contaut with someone who can provide him resources is paramount to him Oeing able to manage that fire scene and to those people's safety. So any missed call is a problem. It's not a ~natter of it almost got through. Almost isn't good enough. That's what fire safety is all about. For fire-ground is what we refer to as one radio having uo reach another one at the fire scene. Fire-ground is what's referred to as the senior managing. There can be multiple fire ground scenes within ~he geography at the same time. Poor fire-ground means that a fireman on the back of the building who's been charged with a rear attack, can't reach the chief who gave him that responsibility. So the chief is sitting out in front of the fire scene, he's trying to speak with that person in the back who's in rear attack and they cannot communicate effectively with each other, and we'll get into the reasoning why that's come to be. Difficult long range communications, if there's a chief on scene I'm trying to draw a picture of why we do t~is the way we do -- when you have got a volunteer fire department and you have multiple chiefs and potentially multiple scenes an the same time, you need a way to effectively communicate with that chief who has other resources at another scene that you may need. Or you may need to consult with him because the scene you're on has now become a haz-mat scene, and you' re not the haz-mat trained guy. The haz-mat chief is on t~e ouher side of town. You need to be quickly able to interact and get information from him in order fsr you to effectively get your job done, which onee again, the fundamentalal job is to put out the fire. With the amount of resources you need ts do that in a volunteer-based fire department, they're not readily available and communication's paramount to getting your hands on those resources in real time, and that's why real time communication is so important. That's what we mean by effective long range, w~o is currently on mutual aid te the next town over that the chief on scene and that chief can talk ts each other the same way we do on a cell phone, with that 5 February 3, 200S 1 2 3 4 ? 8 10 11 12 13 14~ 15 26 17 ~8 29 20 2:/ 22 24 25 immediate response of pushing the talk button and speaking to that other person who has those other resources. The biggest issue we had to look aU was the platform for improvement really wasn't there. The iow band system that's in use today, which is the simplex radio system, which means that you're non using any wide area available machine no talk on, you're strictly relying on ~he antennae available uo the radio, and the power the raOio makes to reach from radio to radio. Whether that radio's cross town, whether that radio's next to each other, ~he only thing you can do in the existing platform or iow band is to use what the FCC allows you to, which is that small amount of tower, that small antennae and the 30 wants that they license off the firehouse to talk on. And we'll get Eo why that's importan~ as we move on. Bottom line is that system's outdated. It's not that nhis is a unique probleln to Orient Fire District. This is a problem that every fire district nationwide faces. It was a problem faced at 9,'11. You've got to have a reliable communications system ~hat gets you to talk reliably from radio to radzo on demand, and if you ~on't have that, people can potentially lose their lives. That's what this is all about. The existing system that's in place, with iow band simplex nechnology cannot reliably do than. As we move on you'll see how the studies prove ~hat out. There's a real fancy computer program that I own, that Motorola insists tha~ I do, that you put all this informanion into, and it can plot for you how the radio system performs. Now, Uo try an~ give you all the ariEhmatic how that system works, I'm probably not qualified to do that. would probably require like a Ph.D. in mathematics, bun I understand how radio works sc I know how ~o use the program. The simple explanation on what the plot tells you is let's start with the wording first, "talk out" means from where you want to talk our Eo ~he person you want to reach, ~hat's called talk out. If the person au the fire department pushes down a~ the microphone at the dispatch center, how well does tMe person out in the fields hear him, that's out. Talk out on the iow band system was never a problem. It works pretty well, are there February 2, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 '7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 interference issues, yes, we'll get to that later. Talk out, as you can see from the diagram, green depicts okay, green is gooO, red is bad. In this scenario, actually, green is no~ as good as red. Red indicates hot, very hot, there's a lot of radio energy for that radio to hear so the signal's very clear. Green is still good. As you move more towards blue, then navy blue and darker, means there's less energy, ~neans the radio stops hearing. As you can see from the map, the talk out energy on low band was never really ail issue, you can hear someone from the dispatch center lust fine all the way out past Plum Island. Low band talk in, however, is a completely differen~ story. Talk in from a mobile radio in the chief's car back to the dispatch center was significantly impaired. You can see where there's blue areas and dark blue areas right within the fire district. Now, how many of them are ~here? Doesn'~ look all that bad, does it? But that's from a mobile radio which your chief has had in his car, not from the chief standing at the fire scene or from the guy at back in rear attack trying no talk to the dispatcher. Now, le~'s look at low Oand. As represented from unit to unit, I couldn't plot it because it's that bad. The whole chart is blue. Because low band fundamentally one in a simplex connection from radio no radio doesn't work that well. You don't have any height, you don't have any power, you have whatever energy's in that battery and t~a~ li~le rubber antennae. There's no back stage infrastructure no help you complete than communication. Also, there's an interference issue, and we'll get to what causes those. There's a legacy of issues associated with low band communications. For one thing i~'s what's called a no ~one system, and ~his problem's been around since its inception but there's nothing anyone's willing to do about it because the system's already in place. But the radios have ~o work in a mo~e w~ich is called carrier squelch, which means there's no signal to block Rnything in the radio. They leave the radio inuentionally wide open so it can hear as best it can. The down side to that is that every manmade piece of interference out there also can open the 7 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 24 2b radio. So those pieces of interference which can be anything from Nextel telephones te personal computers, microwave ovens all emit energy in the low band space where the radios are today. Because those radios operate and carry a squelch, it's not unusual -- any fireman .san tell you this - he'll be walking down the street and his pager is squawking away. It's not a fire call, it's a leaking microwave oven tws houses away. That's the reality of low band. That's the reality efa technology that is done. The demonstration of that is than there's lack of manufacturers for it. Most of the manufacturers have dropped iow band equipment from their product line completely. It's net there anymore. Why? Because there's a limited market for it. There's a realization that as a technology this isn't going anywhere. We gotta ge someplace else, we have to de other things. And since there are better technology, because obviously people haven't been sitting around doing nothing with technology for the past 20 years, there are other solutions. The ether thing you have to Oeal with similarly, paging difficulties. The pagers ~hemselves that are manufactured on low band have been re-engineered te try te deal with the face thau all this interference is around us. On eno hand that's a goo~ thing because it's less likely for the pager to fault. The other side it's a had thing because new it's mere likely the pager won't hear what it's supposed te hear. And a simple example I can give you, any fireman can tell you this toe, if you put your low band pager and your Ne×tel en the same side of your belt, Ewe guys can be standing in the same room, one pager will go off the other pager won't. Hove the Nextel to the other side, the pager mysteriously starts working again. Why is that? The FCC let that happen because with this onslaught of technology and the decreased value of our dollar, the FCC decided that iu was a better idea to let everybody self-regulate. So we'll create this sen of rules where everybody gets to generaue interference and we'll leave in up to the person that wears that thing no mitigate interference. And any electronic device you buy ~oday goes with that little statement stamped in the front of the owner's brochure, it's called Part 15. If you 8 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2b read a brochure on anything you have laying around your house, your DVD player, it says if you cause interference, it's your problem not the device's problem. You have the ultimate responsibility to unplug it. Of course, that makes it really hard ~o watch the DVD. But that's what we're dealiug with today. The story I'll tell you is that for a week and a half, Southampton had a problem with one of the ambulance companies. Their channel wasn't available for use because there was always something on it. It was like a whirring sound. And we spent about a week with radio direction equipments trying to track it ~own, anO that whirring sound turned out to be the motor in a person's DVD player holding their ambulance channel open. To show you in the real world that this happens, I mean, you could drum your fingers on top of that DVD player and it will run all over the ambulance channel in Southampton. This is the reality of the age we live in. There's also recourse well, somebody else will fix it. There's this thing called 800, Ehat's another band, just like iow band, 800 megahertz is where the county built their raOio system back when there were frequencies a~?ailable. Some of what the county and the local fire departments do today, they do 800 megahertz, there are radios there where they can talk to county control, where they can talk to bedcom, but the scope of that system is limited and ~he o£verage of it is limited, and they're not going to allow local fire departments ~o add their ~raffic to an already burdened system. That's another factor. There's a new kind of svstem coining, well, that's a great possibility, the last county system cost I think someplace upwards of 20 million dollars. Yes, potentially there is going to be another county system coming, but today, there's no frequency to put the county system on because they're all currently held by television statisns which have not yet had to relinquish them because of FCC rules. And of course, there's tMe issue of funding because to build an 800 trunking system that all the fire departments could use would cost in excess of 20 million dollars, conservatively speaking. 9 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 25 So what do we have for options? Well, we could leave it alone. Something tells me that nhat's not what the fire department wanted because when you get into life safety issues and firemen safety issues and effective communications to help the people that own homes that are potentially going to have a fire, leaving in alone doesn't sound like a reasonable solution. You can wait for someone else to do it. And we talked abc. L~t that already, there potentially will be some huge wide area system like there is for Suffolk County Police Department who all cohesively work on one radio system, and any policeman in Suffolk County could call any other policeman. Had thau police level system that cost upwards of 20 million dollars been rolled out to police departments on eastern Long Island? No. They all still have their independent radio systems just as the fire service will. There's also the issue of funding. A system of that magnitude costs 20 million dollars, I wonder where that 20 million dollars is going to come from, and that was actually in 1980's dollars, I don't know what it would be in 2000's dollars. We could shore up the low Oand system, }kay, let's talk about that for a minute. What problems did we see with the iow band system? Talk out was pretty good, talk back in from a mobile was pretty good, so what is it that we're going u.s do te impact these ether factors that affect the very fact ~haE low band is ineffective? We can't stop interference, in fact, it's only going te go up. There's no doubt about that. There are people in this reem that don't yet own DVD players that will before the end of this year. There's people that don't own the next plasma television er whatever it is, and the more consumer electronics we buy thau all classify ~s part ef the FCC rules, the more likely it is there will be more interference. Hew do we stop the interference from one low band user te another low band user? The way the low band system was designed is each fire division, not a district. A town is a fire district; a fire division is a group ef towns, share eno low band channel because that's all there was, that's all there is, that's all the licensed. FCC So if Southold, Mautituck, East Marion 10 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 24 25 and Orient and Cutchogue all have a fire scene at the same time, they're all trying to use the same channel. Let's see hew effective that is. Having stood at the wild fires en Sunrise Highway and watched pine trees go up like toothpicks soaked in gasoline, I cai1 tell you that more than one department on one channel doesn't work very well. And that is low band and that's not changing. What we can do though is move someplace else where you have your own channel, where you don't have ~o share with anybody, and you get to bring people Oy invitation to your party. So when you have a mutual aid situation, you can say here's our channel to use, click it en your radio. That's where this is going, that's where it's gone, many departments have this already. There are departments in divisions where they have already set up specific mutual aid frequency and what's called protocols, which is how you use the resources ~hat you have to fight a fire, effective communications when you're mutualing with another department. That's hew it's done new. The combination of all that is where I think we need to ~o. Low bard paging certainly isn't going {~o ge anywhere for a while. Se some shoring up has to happen. Yes, there is an issue of the age ef some of the equipment in the Orient Fire Department. Like any orgauization, you do have te take a look at what is the expected lifespan of a piece ef equipment. I mean, hew long ~ees your VCR last? Hew long does your personal computer last? Why woula you think that a piece of electronic equipment like a radio, which is tesigned with much of the same components, with much of the same engineering standard is going to last any different? They don't. 8ut the object sf the interference, adjacen~ channel and co-channel from other districts, interference from within your own fire division, there's nothing we san do in terms of fixing that except move. That's what fix is, that's why everyone's doing i~. This isn't a problem just Orient has. We jnst finished doing Mattituck. Riverhead's already gone. Jamesport's already gone. It's not li~e we're doing this just for ,Orient because it's a fun thing to do. We're doing this because it needs to be done and they asked me to look at it, 11 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 6 7 8 10 11 12 13 ~4 16 17 18 1.9 2O 21 22 24 2~ and that's how we got to where we are today. So what's involved in doing that? You have to take a new approach and design a system to deal with as best you can within what's reasonable all those problems we covered in the previous slides. The simplest thing to do is a high band repeater which is that move to UHF frequency. what a repeater does is takes tne very weak signal that it hears from its antennae and amplifies it a thousand times and sends it out again in real time. It's concurrent, it's not like there's a delay for that to happen. That's what makes ~he repeater such an interesting device, because it's actually doing two things at once. It's listening and it's talking; that's why it actually takes two frequencies to build a repeater not one. Bu~ now I'm going down a road of technical jargon that nc. one needs to hear about. What does it mean to the fire department? What it means is that that small radio now, and face i~ no one wants to carry a radio very large now, the technology's there to be more effective and have it on you and not have it weigh 42 pounds like the original radios did that small radio with its small anuennae now instead of trying to talk radio to radio, ~alks to that large antennae where with that very hot receiver and that really strong amplifier, so those o~her radios can all hear what it says. That's the fundamennal principal of how a repeater works. We also need to embrace a fire ground channel where there isn't any interference. As you move up in frequency, the probability of interference is lower, so we also have the PCC grant, a~ld the FCC application's already in and approved, a~ld we have these channels au our disposal to talk directly from radio to radio. So now a chief on the scene with a rotation of his channel selector can talk in a bunch of different places without ever having uo r~n back to his truck without having tc wonder what he's doing. It says right on his radio, I'm on ~he fire-ground channel, so if I need to talk to the attack guy, I go to the attack channel. If I ~ieed to get more resources out here, now I c~n go to the dispaEch channel and ge~ more resources. I can ~alk to that chief who's one mutual aid over and find out do I need haz mat support here because he's the eno ~ha~ has that answer, he's 12 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 25 seven miles away, now I can talk to him. I couldn't do that before. The consele and the paging system are nice to have. Would it be great te be able te mingle all those channels on ene piece ef equipment so it's easy to train the fireman getting to the heuse as the first guy to be the dispatcher, because that's how the volunteer fire service works. A lot of velunteer fire departments den'E have full time paid dispatchers. So what l, ou try ~o de is make the piece of equipment they have ts lock at be as simple as pessible and uhere's ways to de that. But that's more efa longer term geal than a shorter term goal ef fixing the fact that peeple can't talk te each other. The paging system, once yeu puu a new high band system in, and you have a better dispatch console, we can effectively change the dispatch system te either be more effective the way it exists by putting a control statien fer high band aE the PD dispatch center and moving everybedy to high band or revisit via the new console Eechnolegy hew we generate a more effective page with ~he existing low band pager that everybody has. We have te do this in stages, te try te do this all at ence, it's like you're going no ~ry te build a race car overnight with bushel baskets full ef parts, yeu can't do ~ha~. Yeu have to break iE into chunks, de what's important first, and i~portant to the fire department, their priority was get us a better ceverage, gee us better fire-ground cemmunicationss. So that's how we went after it. The betuem line is when you geu dene you have a systems-wide cemmunication approach. Semething that works with these ether mutual aid ,departments that yeu need to talk to that are already en their way to deing this. Buu yeu have ~o have a place te put it. That repeater doesn't work very well if the antennae is at eye level. Why is that? There are some very simple facts ef radie. Radie communications are basically line ef sight. FH cemmunicatiens are ~he type of communications that you can buy and wear on your belt. The simple explanation of that is if I can'u shine a flashlight or laser peint at the other ~uy I'm talking re, if he can't see my light, i can'~ talk 13 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 to him. That's the simplest explanation. So if I have a chief on the East Marion/Orient borderline, I have another guy out at the ferry, can they see each other's laser pointer? No, of course not. But if the antennae that represents the repeater · s some number of feet in the air and I'm sitting on top of that structure and I have two laser ~,ointers, can I shine a laser pointer at each of the people I'm talking to? Of course I can. That's ti~e basic principle upon which tile repeater system and the line of sight radio communication is effective. If the two laser pointers can see each other, the repeater can take what this laser pointer sees and feed it over to the otner guy. But if you can't, if there's no path to create that, you don't have effective communications. Now, I'm giving you the simplisitic cartoon version to keep it simple. Obviously there's a 1st of arithmatic behind this. There's a lot of parameters you can set to -- well, how ~nany times do I want the laser point to be able to clearly see everybody; are there leaves on the trees; is there a car going bt,; is there a building in the way? That all effects how ~he communications is affected. But what makes the difference is where Vou put the antennae and tile parameters under which Vou operate the radio system, that's how you qet the maps. Height is might. We covered that, right? The higher you go the further the laser pointers can see. You're building an ulnbrella. Think of the edges of an umbrella are reaching ou~ to the places you want to talk. Everybody within that umbrella can now talk to each other, so obviously the higher you put that point the more effective it's going to work. But there's arrangement to that. Does Orient Poin~ need to talk to Selden? No. Does Orient Poinn need to talk to East Marion? Yes, probably. That's why we build things the way we do. That's why ~he computer program tells us what we have no do. There are also some fundamental rules You can't talk through dirm. Get back to the laser pointer. One of the worst insulators to FM radio, line of sight radio is dirt. Yon can't ~alk through dirt, that's why w~ere do you see most antennaes for big TV stations, radio stations? You drive down the expressway there's one in Hauppauge, you drive down Sunrise Highway, 14 February 2, 2005 15 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2~ 25 there's a big one in Manorville, that's because they want their antennae on the dirt, so they find the highest pile of dirt on Long IslanO and uhey pun the antennae on the dire pile. But once again, that's if you got somebody who wants to talk, like the county, who wants to talk back to Bay Shore from Amityville to Yaphank. You need that coverage, bun if you want to talk from East Marion to Orient or Orient to an adjoining district, you don't need to be on Manorville, you don't need to be cna dirt pile that's 350 feet. You need what works. No one wants to carry a ra~io much bigger than their wallet, that's just a fact of life. That's the society we live in today. No one wanes to carry a four pound brick on their belt, especially in a fire scene in uheir turnout gear. So we're all trying to deal with what's reasonable technology. Can we get radios the size of a pack of cigarettes? Sure we can. Can we get radios that do everything from tell me where the fireman is to talk to me when 1 change the channel? Sure you can, they're $5,000 each. Do some fire departments Ouy them? Yes, they do. Is that a requirement of the type of system t~at I was asked to put in place by Orient Fire Department? No, it's not. BUt something aOout the size of a wallet than fie on your belu was reasonable. So uhat's the direction we took. You also have to remember that interference is a necessary evil, you can't escape it. No matter what you do there's interference; what you wanu to try to do is mitigate it. So the system you design has to deal with whatever interference is going to be presented to the users of the radio. So what benefits do you gee when you actually pu~ a system like this together? First of all ysur coverage problem going across the district is solved because now anyone within tee district can talk to anyone else within the district striculy by picking the radio up anO keying it up. With the reliability as the teparnment asked me no design of 90 percent, which is pretty much the Motorola standards, any radio system, no matter how much resources you pump into it, ~s not one hundred percent. Simplest example I can give you is ~he cell phone. Millets and millions of dollars are spent on the ceil phone infrastructure, but you still can'E, even in a February 3, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 21 22 23 2% 25 highly populated area like Manhattan, walk down the streen and expect the cell phone to nave coverage from one end of the town to the other without losing it because money just doesn't matter sometimes. You have nhe general rules of communications you can't escape. You can't talk through dirt, you can't talk through a ceruain alnount of concrete. I'm working for a job in the Suffolk County jail right now where even though the repeater system is within five line of sight miles of the jail, two radios inside the jail can't talk to each other because two feet of reenforced concrete is really hard to talk through; that's the reality. But with the system we put together, we did i~ as best we could with what we had to work with to get them uhe 90 percent coverage they asked for. How many occasions are there to talk through two feet ot concrete in Orient fire district? Not many, we aren't built for that. There are other things a newer radio system can do, obvious, because as technology :~nanges, with it comes features and functionality than you didn't have before, like what's getting no be very important is a man down sysuem, which means that a fireman in trouble only has to fall over, is one example, or hit an emergency button on his radio, and he acnivates a beacon nhau uells the fire chief on the scene or the dispatch center that radio number VC44 is in nrouble. So if you're in a situation where you can't find anonher firefighter, you've fallen through to a basement of the building, that button can save your life. The system we are talking abouu implementing is capable of doing that. The system you have now can't even dream about it. It's not doable, not just from the fact that the functionality doesn't exis~ in the radio, but if you have coverage problems where you can't talk from one radio to the chief's car, how can you expect the elnergency beacon uo get through? You can't. The other thing it solves is it eliminates the crowding. Because as more and more fire departments move towards doing this, we talked before abouu uhere's mutual aid plan in place and what's called by the FCC a memorandum of understanding where departments can -- the equivalent of licensing nhe channels so when they 16 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 9 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 23 24 25 go from one department to another now to work wiEn that department is a click on that radio, now they're using that radio's resources for that ~epartment's system, can't do that today. Bottom line is, you end up with a reliable communicauion system, and that's what this is all about. So what does it actually look like? This is the high band talk in coverage. Now that we have a lot of green, very little light Olue, that map leeks familiar te everybody, you recognize what we're looking at, right? Talk out, mere effective, that's not unusual in a radio system. T[~e FCC when they license you, they run something called contour maps. What they want you te be able to do is push as much RF down into your area as you can se you get things like basement coverage. Typically they say it's more ef an alligator because it's loud and it pushes a lot of energy downwards and into its district. So if you do fall through a fleer, that radio has the ability ~o be heard and penetrate, hisEening you try to balance your system, try Eo get as much coverage listening as you can talking but there's solutions to that, you can actually add mere receivers, you can do things, and I think actually Mr. Turner had mentioned that earlier eh. We sheuid put mere receivers in, that's true, high Oand si, sEems sometimes what you end up Ooing, if you find a coverage hole, what you de is you add a receiver se you can take mere inbound information and feed it to the repeater instead of just using the singular repeater antennae itself. But ~alk out is typically accomplished with a singular antennae, and that's what this depicts. Another thing we need and has been found, and I think Chief Cechran was in here one night and mentioned it, there's an lack of inOeund portable coverage on the peiice department system. One of the things we were going te de at the same time we did the Orient system was collocate on that same structure a new inbounO police antennae. LiKe I said, you {:an have more receivers than you have a transmitter. The police department, ~hey actually have what is called a voted si, sEem, se there's multiple paths for inbound audio coming from different places. And there's a computer that decides in real time which signal is heard the best. It's not inexpensive but it's very 17 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 24 25 effective, but they need a receiver out here. The receiver, they need te have a new receiver at the site in Orient at the height we selected, would improve their coverage significantly from what they have today. They have a lot of dead spots. I didn't actually bring a map ef the existing system but they have a lot of dead spots out on the eastern end of the Island. And they would be well-filled, as you can see it's all green. We have just pretty inuch covered that. I put the map up first but it's pretty easy to understand if we have that structure available we would also wane to let them use it. It would make a big difference in their radio system coverage. That's the end. Have I left any stone unturned? BOARD MEMBER ORLANDO: I don't think so. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: The height? MR. SCHEIBEL: The height of the antennae? It's pretty simple, how I came up with all this, is I used a computer program to model it, and the uumber I came up with to attain those figures and fulfill that goal was 120 feet. It's just a matter of the arithmatic and honestly, could it he higher? Yes. The ultimate plot I ran to get ne 9b, 96 percent coverage took it to 180, ]90, and actually if you look at ether radio systems like Southampton, Selden, Flanders, uhey're all at 180 te 195 height. But once again, what's reasonable. · looked at -- this is what I do, I looked at what I had ~o accomplish, I looked at what my goals were. I looked at what was doable. I looked at 120 feet. One of the requirements was Orient Fire Department is the first mutual aid from the mainlan~ to Plum Island. The Plum Island radio system is a federal system, which they do ne~ share. It's actually going up brand new, and it's not in yet, and really we de ncr even know how it's going to work. But the federal radio system is being put in by ~he Department of Homeland Security. I actually did some work on the jeO for Motorola. That's not what the fire department uses for mutual aid. The fire departmen~ uses their system to talk te their men for their men ~e get assistance from their department. That's why in the mutual aid plans on the chief counsel here on the north fork, ~here's a plan for this. Like 18 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I said, this isn't someshing Orient's doing. It's something everyone's doing, anO the 120 foot number is what worked. That's what I could mee5 the goals with. Could it be higher? Sure. BL~t do they need to talk to Selden? No. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: How far will they be able to talk, just to Mattituck, to Laurel? MR. SCHEIBEL: Map shows hand held to hand held, ~hey'll be able to go from almost the end of Plum Island at 90 percent into East Marion. So they'll be able to cover one fire from musual district 5o each site, that's how I engineered i~, tnaE's what they asked me to do. Last summer I engineered a system for 5he Town of Southampson. They wanted hand held to hand held coverage in the whole Town of Soushampton, 20 something miles long. They wanted to know that this ambulance guy can Ealk to this fire gu!, if one guy is in Speonk and the oster guy is out si55ing on the Eas5 Hampton ~order, does it work? Yes, it works really good. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: How high is their ant ennae ? HR. SCHEIBEL: They have three of them all over 200 feet. It's a matter of mathematics and engineering. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Even at 120 feet if you needed mutual aid you could non contact Greenporn er even Southold? MR. SCHEIBEL: No. Let's put it this way, ena mobile radio, not a hand held, they will probably be able to reach beyond the -- when you feed parameters of the program, we use what we call worst case, so you used a hand held radio at three watts with the standard rubber duck annennae a~ waist level, because that's where the firemen carry the radio on their turn out gear, then there's another set of arithmatic that says the signal from that radio has to have a certain amount of intelligibility 5o be a useable radio signal, and that's also the paramezers of the program, that's how you know I can do 90 percent. The simple explanation of 5he 90 percent rule is nine times out of 10 when you key the microphone yc<~ can get the person on the firs5 try, that's measured on a three by three foot cell ~asis. That's why you see ~he maps, little squares. One square would change colors and one wouldn't, 19 February l, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 25 that's the cell. You can acnually define the cell size too, but I nried to de it like three feet by three feet. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Has Plum Island asked for munual aid from Orient7 MR. SCHEIBEL: That's not something I could tell you. That would be a fire department question. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Members, Vincent, any questions? BOARD MEMBER ORLANDO: One quesnien I have is, is zhe 90 feen geed for the police deparEment? MR. SCHEIBEL: Yes, because the police is only a receiver, net a transmitter. They have a very big nransminter in Pecenic on nheir tower. BOARD MEMBER ORLANDO: The one commenn you had was yet can't talk through dirt, but you're saying than eno fire departmenn button has an emergency button, if you're in the basement, isn't that talking through dirn? MR. SCHEIBEL: Remember I showed you how you have a lot more concentranion of RF in your local district? That's because you want that radio no be able to in those parameters you feed the program, use the worsn case scenario, so yes, you can predicn with a high probabiliny, 90 plus percent nhat when he hits that button, t~e radio's going to be heard. MR. SIMON: Whan can you do winh 90 feet? MR. SCHEIBEL: Something less than what that map says. MR. SIMON: You can't get to Pluln Island, hut can you get te Orient Point? MR. SCHEIBEL: I would assume you could probably gen to some of it, ~un what's going te happen is the umbrella of the red and yellow where you want the cencentranion will shrink, so nnere you're directly affecting the probabiliny that that radio's reaching when it is in the basement. Because nhere's a lot of things built into the program, there's a thing called feznol effect, there's a thing called tree canopy, where even based en ~he ~ime ef year it's net just a matter of the radio being in the basement, if in's June sr July, it's in the basement talking through all the foliage that's in nhe nrees. So the more energy that you can pump into that local geography where you need the coverage is obviously the 2O February l, 2005 2 3 5 6 ? 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 25 betEer the system's going Eo work. AnO once again, what is the rule, what is the fundamental rule? Height is might. And you can't talk through dirt. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Jim? BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: No, I understand it perfecEly. Thank you. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Kieran? HR. CORCOR~/~: No, thank you. CHAIRWOMAlg OLIVA: A~i right, let me ask Mr. Turner if he would like to make his presentation. MR. TURNER: I don't have any equipment, I'm sorry. John Turner, I live in Orient. I'm a professor at New York Universiuy of information uechnology. I've been there some 30 years. Before that I designed military command and control systems for Airborne Instrumenus LaboraUory out on uhe Island. I am an electrical engineer and a computer scientist. My current work now is mostly in various aspects of somputing. I did do a study for the New York City Police Department on nheir 911 system a number of years ago which resulted in changes in Ehe procedures for that system that made it more effective. I thought Mr. Scheibel's presentation was excellent, and I have one point I'll make abo~t in, but I thought it was extremely educational. I~ was accurate, and he set foruh the issues very clearly. I wish iu were easier to work cooperately with the commissioners of the Orient Fire District because I think we could have saved ourselves maybe a half an hour. I ~hink there is no disagreement than it would be in the bose interest of the community to move the communications to the high band. Ail of the problems Ehat the low band has make it more problemauic to use, and the technology that is available at the high band allows you uo do many more things. Just having channels that are ~vailable for different types of communications is extremely important. So I think there is no tisagreement on the question of moving as many of the fire districts here as possible uo the high band. I think the issue, however, is that don't think Orient's currenE communication is any 21 February 3, 2{}05 1 2 6 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24 25 poorer than Greenport's or Bast Marions or the surrounding fire districts. In other words, this is a problem that's shared and we're just getting to the end of the useful life of the low band systems, and we are going to have to move. So this is a problem that I think you are going Eo have to deal with for all the communities here. And I think the question that you're going ~o have te deal with is do you really want to see a series ,Df 120 feet antennaes spring up every four er five miles er might there be some technologies that would make sense te explore for the Southold community which might in turn allow you to dc. ~he same thing Out not have a series ef antennaes. And the second issue I think is, that should you decide to ge forward with 120 feet antennae for Orient, I thin~ it's extremely important that that antennae be used for emergency communication and that it net be a vehicle to include cell communications and other types of communications, and that you get into a situation where there are many other difficulties. Se I think the issue is hew te constrain an antennae if .?ne were to go forward. Let me deal a little bib with some of the technical side of things because I know that that is what you want to focus on, and I'll be very happy to take any questions you may have. I think I agree with everything that Bill said except for the answer on the question of the 90 foot antennae, which I compliment you on, sir, for your asking it. For two months we have asked Bill thrcugh Ed, Mr. Boyd, to do plots an the Orient firehouse for talk in and talk out at 120 feet, 90 feet, 75 feet, and 60 feet. We did that because we wanted to understand the extent to which the performance was degraded. Now the talk out is not going to be an issue. The question is the talk in and the question is as you lower the height of the antennae, how are you lowering the line of sight. What aren't you going to see? Now Bill has a computer program to do this. My understanding of this is that that's changing essentially a couple of parameters in that program. It probably takes a half an hour ~o run and plot out. I uhin~ that information should be available so that you can see for yourself the extent to which the signal is degraded, and that is really what I disagree with 22 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 him on . A second point I'd like te make is tha~ we have been trying to work cooperatively with the Orient Fire District through Hr. 8oyd. I have made repeated requests, and I believe I have 2spied you en them for a variety of information that would have allowed us te explore the antennee height question and also a couple ef alternatives which may not work, but were au least worthwhile to investigate prior te going forward, net afterwards, and what I feel a little -- how can I say this what I don't understand is why tha~ information hasn't been forthcoming. When I see nhis in a student, I usually figure the student's trying us hide something from me. I mean, we are in a cooperative situation here. Ail of us want to see the absolutely best emergency communication for sur fire districts and I would leave immediately if you believe tha~ we wanted anything less, bu~ also, when you're working and you're ~rying to understand a problem and the community has a right to undersnand what it is that is being proposed, and whether various alternatives have been explored and, in fact, I believe the rules that govern this require a written submission of alternative schemes, so that they can be ~nderstood by others, and that Es m!, knowledge has just not been done Dy the Orient Fire Districu, so I find that a little difficult to understand and I am at a loss. I think that there are some alternates thau are worth exploring. The Greenport police I know use an antennae in Greenport, and they have run tests out at Orient point, and that they are satisfied with that performance. I think there is a 300 foot public service antennae in Greenport. It may very well ~e that ~here needs te be a medium height repeater located at the Orient Firehouse te be able to pick up the signals, the hand holds coming in because you need to have at least one repeater site to be able te take the signal in for the hand holds, and I think going to a repeater system makes ail the sense. You don't want two l~and holds to communicate to each other, you want to communicate es a repeater site then transmit out. There seems ~o me there's ne problem on the talk out, if you lower the height, and i~ mat, very well be that since it's the hand held power that gorges and as 23 Fe ruar' ~, 2005 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24 25 long as you can see the antennae, it would only be at the fringes on the East Marion side ~hat yon would lose signal strength as you lower the height. So I would just like to see what happens with a repeater of lower height at Orien~ but use of the public service antennae here in Greenpert. i don't knew whether there is space available, I knew nothing ef the cost, but it is an option ~hat should be investigated prior te going forward and it should be seriously investigated. It shouldn't be, well, look, we know this s~uff, take my word for i~, we have investigated it. I think that is net how you de things in an open and in a public situation. We're actually trying te de the same uhings here. The other thing thaE is further ou~ and mere difficult Ee investigate is what's called a distributed antennae system, and such a system makes use ef fiber optic cabling to existing telegraph poles. The antennae sits en the top of the telegraph pole, all of the electronics are at the top of the pole, so you use your existing poles, you have to put in fiber optic cable, but i~ gives you a large number of anEennaes located throughout the district se you get the advantage of being much closer to a building where you're going te lose signal strength because you're in Ehe basement of a building, and you're much more likely to have good cemmunicaEions than having only eno antennae centrally located that may be three or four miles from a transmitter that's in the basement of a building which is probably naE going to have sufficien~ signal strength. So, such a system should be looked at because my understanding is thaE East Marion now is planning, proposing a system, and I think some of the other communities here could easily do that, and I think Southold needs to think through whaE an infrastructure like a distributed anEennae system that could handle boEh cell and emergency communication for all of Southold. The costs could be shared bI, the various communities and it might be a possibility, a way out of just seeing these antennaes springing up every four or five miles. So at a minimum I think it would be worthwhile going far enough down the line to show that such a system was hOE feasible. I would be 24 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 lb 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 glad to take any questions. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Vincent? BOARD MEMBER ORLANDO: Has the conversation come up with alternative sites or is it locked in stone it has to be on nhis topography? What about putting it on the nornh shore where it's higher? MR. TURNER: I think we originally nhoughn that in the Orient area you wanted to put something on Brown's Hills because you get 100 feet up immediately. Orient's pretty flat and if you had a distributor system, you could have something out at the point, you could have something at Brown's Hills. When I learned about these sort of lower height broadly distributed systems, I would tend no look at both. I would look at one with maybe four or five locanions around Orient and making sure you were at the East Marion border and maybe even East Marion and making sure you covered Orient with maybe four or five sites, and I'd also look at this mesh sysuem which makes use of a lot of very small antennaes that are just put on top of poles. My understanding of the brief that was given to Mr. Scheibel by the Orient Fire District was first, that they had to cover fire districts to the easU, one district to the east and one district to the west, and that the equipment had to be on the Orient Fire District property, which essentially means at the Orient firehouse, and that was, I believe what he was given. I don't know if Bill has investigated any of these other nhings. BOARD MEMBER ORLANDO: No, you can'n be an another site or no, you haven't looked into it? MR. SCHEIBEL: No, I haven't looked at in. That's non what the fire department asked me ~o do. And I can tell you also that based on my experience you're talking systems just on a cost Oasis far in excess, and I mean far, in capital letters, of what we're proposing a~ ~he firehouse. MR. TURNER: I think you wan~ ~o look at economics and you want to do a small study, and you need to have the people come in and you need a proposal in hand. MR. SCHEIBEL: You knew what thaE would cost? MR. TURNBR: I know the systems Out there 25 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 ? 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 are other communities, Bill, that are going down that route. AUDIENCE HEMBER: East Hampton. MR. SCHEIBEL: I'm doing their system right now. It's not designed that way. MR. TURNER: I think it is potentially interesting. I don't think i~ should be ruled eu~ because somebody says it's economically infeasible. I know that East Hampton is in the process ef very serious discussions about such a system, and it just behooves Southold Eo take a look at it and gee the data. I think, you Knew, Ene problem I have is that I'm used te studying things in advance ef deciding what to do, and if reasonable alternatives are not studied seriously ~hen I get very concerned. And I feel te some extent that that is the situation here. And I jus~ would feel better if we could get the information, rule some of these things out, but I do believe you have te go very shortly to a high band system for emergency communications. CHAIRWONL~N OLIVA: Michael? MR. SIMON: No further questions. CHAIRWOMAN O~IVA: Jim? BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I have comments. Number eno I den'~ believe the application before us is necessarily what you're speaking about, Mr. Turner, ii1 that we have before us a fire district that owns a piece of land that the district chose to put a firehouse on. And they have come before us with an application to put up an antennae. Now, they are not required in my opinion to prove that it will work better someplace else other than the fire department. This is their purview, this is their rasponsibility, and this is what they're proposing. Certainly, if someone within that district wanted to request of uhe district to do the study, mhen those people have every right to make that decision, but to then require this Board to require a fire district to do what you aske.~ them to do, which is to do a study, that's not ~he reason this Board is here, and uhat's not the reason we're here tonight. MR. TURNER: Could I respond to nhat? BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Sure. MR. TURNER: I am in the district anO we have requested verbally and in writing that uhey 26 February 3, 2005 2 3 4 ? 8 9 ~0 12 13 14 iS 1¥ 18 20 2~ 22 23 24 2~ ~o these studies, but ic doesn't make any difference. The second thing is that my understanding is that they have asked for a waiver in height, and when you ask for a waiver in ileight, there are certain requirements that need to be followed. My understanding of that is that you need to look at alternatives to that height, to that antennae and that chat is part of the process of presenting information for the waiver. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I agree with you, now the alternative is within what they can control. They can control that piece of land and cnly that piece of land, and they're proposing what they're proposing is what they think is best for them. Now, putting one on Brown's Hill, building a mesh sysnem, I can tell you right now, sir, I have installed probably upwards of 200 miles of fiber cable. If you add up each fiber installed, I would say it would go into hundreds cf ~housands of miles I was responsible for as I work for Cablevision. My current company I probably have eight or nine miles of fiber installed, and I can tell you it's about $2,000 for 100 foot to install and maintain it, $2,000 for about 100 feet, 300 feet, $6,000. It's a lot of money. I don't know what a hand held radio costs, but I'll tell you if you're going to build a mesh system, you're going to be quite a few miles of that at that cost. MR. TURNER: Look, tt~e economics, I'm just saying we need to take a look at it. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Sir, that seems chat that is just a stalling tactic. Tile comparissn of building a 120 foct tower and handing out some hands held radios and building a mesh system, there is no comparison to that. ~nderstand New York City, they got plenty of money there and, of course, they have their own problems, they have co go up and down and under. These people don't. They just need build an umbrella that they can transmit co ~rom a radio. Now, I venture co say that if this man did Eloc out a 90 foot pipe you would not see very much less rod in the center, I would venture to say that. I'm talking from the perspective of being in the fire department for 30 years, I lost two friends that would have, had they had the 27 February 2, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 2% 25 technology he's talking about, would be alive today. I can tell you these gentlemen go to work each day, and when they go to bed at night and that fire bell goes in at 2:00 in the morning, uhey answer that call. They really don't want to have to deal with whether or not because they built a 90 foot tower they can't get on a certain street. They want the best that their community can afford to give them. I'm going to go back to what I just said before, if you want to hash this out, the best place te hash this out is at the commissioner's meetings. This should have been done three years age, not now. New we're trying Ee deal with one piece of property that wants a 120 foot tower and honestly, they have convinced me that height is might anO the higher ~t can go the better. Now, if it's 120 feet they're asking for then maybe that's what they get. If you can show that it can be done at 90 feet, then let us know that, you get your expert in here, and let us know uhat. But your expert, honestly, is that man, he's your district. Your fire district from Orient hired this man as an expert. MR. TURNER: In effect what you're saying is don't ask intelligent questions, don't ask tc see any information. BOARD HEHBER DINIZIO: No, sir. I'm saying te you, sir, is ask them in the right place. MR. TURNER: I have asked them in writing, I have asked uhem verbally. BOARD HEMBER DINIZIO: Your remedy is Ec, vote them out. MR. SIMON: I would actually agree. What we have here is a situation in which we have two experts. One ef them is in the employ ef an interested party, obviously, that's their job, and when asked is there a problem, his answer, a very articulate, well-argued answer is, ne problem. The outside expert has said, we think there are still some questions that need te be answered, not arguing that Mr. Scheibel's recommendation is wrong, but just that we need te answer some further questions, and we are the 8oard who have the obligation tz~ decide net wha~ is and wha~ is net a good idea, Out whether a variance should be granted, and that decision 28 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1% 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 23 24 25 could De made intelligently only with answers ~o the types of questions that Mr. Turner has raiset. So to me it seems to be a no brainer to say than we cannot proceed until further information is given in answer to the questions Mr. Turner raised. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I would agree with you if I thought this was the proper venue for ~his discussion. But this is not. This gentleman is suggesting that they do something, that ~he fire department do something that they have no control over. They have no control over Greenport tower, they have ne control over Brown's Hills, they have no control over a mesh system. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: I understand that but I de understand what Mr. Turner is saying that you could just look into BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: You den'~ need to. That's net part of our application. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: I'm net saying that we have to direct them, but I think they have some validity to ask their questions. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Their venue is the commissioners ef their district. HR. TURNER: Is there a commissioner here of the district? CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Mr. Scheibel wanted to MR. SCHEIBEL: The only comment is I'm involved in implementation of East Hampton's quote/unquote mesh system right now. That is a nine million dollar implementation. I just wanted ~o give you an idea ef the order ef magnitude. It is a mesh system in that it uses multiple sites, but they're all high sites, the shortest eno is about 170 feet, ie's at the Amagansett firehouse, and that's how the system's being built. MS. MCNEELEY: I'm a resident of Orient. I'm in total agreement with John that we really want the fire department to have the high band communications for all of the reasons that Bill talked about. It's absolutely correct. I was on the phone today with the communications manager of the Planning Board of the Town ef East Hampton and she told me that they had invited a company called Clear Lengths to design and distribute an antennae system in mesh for cellular communications. And we know from our researchers that such a system 29 Pebrnary 3, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 24 25 can easily be used for emergency communications because what they do is the signal that's broadcast over the fiber optic, that's carried over the fiber optic line, goes to the antennae and is reconverted tea radio frequency signal; which means then that you can use a telephone pole or an existing tower er several lower, 60 foot towers for instance te be a Eetal system. And they decide te do this and to make the invitation because they really didn't want East Hampton to look like a porcupine, and that in her research as communications director she found this particular company who, unlike others, which would erect utility poles and have a utility cabinets at the base ef the pole, which is net a very secure situation, this company uses existing telephone poles and existing towers and mounts their utility cabinet on the pole. Se it's very much like a Eelephene uhing we see in some of these big things on the poles as they exist now. Because it has been initiated by the planning department and because of their particular zoning regulations, it does not require zoning or building departments issues at all. It's something ~hey can de very ~uickly if ~hey can come up with the money. Now, East Hampton, like Southold, has a number of hamlets in it. I'm net sure what their governmental structure is, but East HampEon is a township in the same way tha~ Southold is. The proposal that she is inviting is to distribute this throughout the nown itself in all of the different hamlets of the town, utilizing the existing infrastructure, and the existing infrastructure wonld be ~he four large Eowers thaE they new have, the eno that Mr. Scheibel is locating behind the fire deparEmenE in AmaganseE~n and other ones like that, as well as telephone poles, in order to make this very large mesh ~hat covers ~he entire town. They're distributing the costs obviously through the different fire districts in East Hampton in order to de that. So thaE what sounds like a nine million dollar thin~ for the town of Orient would be absolute£y out of Ehe question. But we don't cover as much of an area in Southold as East Hampton does. So argueably the cost might be lower. We have no idea because I just was talking to her ~oday, how do I know. 3O February 3, 2005 1 2 3 6 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 But if Southold, for instance, were proceed in a similar manner, we're certein it could result in a well-developed area-wide communications system, improved cellular csmmunica~ions because you would be distributing the costs of such an implementation with the cellular companies because the request thau they made was basically te cell companies. And since I had contacted Clear Links myself direculy and found out that there would be no ii,pediments running emergency communicaEions over the wires that they need for the cellular communication, there would be an ability to split the costs between the cell companies and the districts in Eas~ Hampton, which was another reason they were so interested in it. If this were to be the case, ~hey would be writing a contract with the town instead of leases with the individual fire departments. So that would enable possibly the full retention of tax exemptions within fire disuricts without compromising future funding needs. It would also save a lot of legal fees for the various fire Oistricts. Income from the cellular component of that structure could be earmarked for the fire districts for incoming reserve funds or pensions or whatever they wanned to do. The plan in East Hampton is being modeled tc coordinate planning and building anO zoning, ~11 of whom would have shared input and responsibiliuy; and it thus would be implemented very quickly and avoid public uproar like we have been experiencing. And all of the same concerns which motivated this structure in East Ha~npton, which has a more complicated terrain than Southold nas, eastern Long Island HospiEal in Greenport Fire Department and the Sounhold police communications network on the Greenport tower make ~reenpor~ Village participation in such a plan crucial because any emergency communications has to involve eastern Long Island Hospital. There's no question about it. It has to involve ~he Greenport Fire Department. So in would be whether er not the ease of communication between the village and the town is one issue, but because it's an area wide -- it's a possibility of an area wide solution, and we're with Plum Island, which is federal and dangerous, ~here is Millstone. There are a lot of differenn things than we need 31 February 3, 2005 1 2 4 5 6 7 8 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 25 emergency communications for. And this type of svstem I think really well thought out to be looked at, and if it is structured the way Ease Hampton is talking about, it could avoiO a lot of town disnress. BOARD MEMBER ORLANDO: Did you ask or did they tell you how long it would take to install or implement something like this? MS. MCNEELEY: I had a very brief conversation with her. She was sick. She said because uhe infrastructure was basically, existing, which is to say all uhe telephone poles are ~round, it would be relatively quick to implement from than point of view. They have existing towers. Basically what they do is they set up - BOARD MEMBER ORLANDO: You don't know how long it would take? MS. MCNEELEY: No, I don't but I don't think it would be as long as -- BOARD MEMBER ORLANDO: I don't want you to speculate. MS. MCNEELEY: The only thing I'm going to say is if you're going to have a tower in Mattituck and a tower in Cutchogue and a tower in East Marion, which is proposeS, and a tower in Orient, how long is that whole process going to take ~o evolve as well. If Sou~hold itself could co,ne up with an emergency communicauion system tha~ involved all the hamlets with Town responsibility and distribution of costs and cooperation with cell companies who have been wanting To get in here, and we could make it possible to do ~hat without voiOing our zoning, it makes a eertain amount of sense. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Ellen, I don't disagree with what you're saying iu's just that this Board doesn't have the authority ~o insist that something like this should be done. The [ire district here has been more or less an entity unto itself, and this would have to go through the fire chief's council and take a fair amount of time ~o see if they would be inuerested in joining nogetner to do something like ~his. MS. MCNEELEY: Well, uhey already have joined ~o the exten~ that they have written a mutual aid agreement and all of them are signatories to that, including Plum Island. So there is a precedent for ~ha~. And if uhey didn't 32 February ~, 2009 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 have to risk their tax exemptions -- CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: But you would have to bring this proposal to the fire chiefs association, we have like that whatsoever. is a height variance. MS. MCNEELEY: MR. CORCORAN: lie authority to do anything Our only jurisdiction here That's it. This is an alternative. This would have to come through the Town Board as well, since it would require a change in the Town Board and the Town as a governing body. MS. MCNEELEY: I don't think iE would require a change in the Town code. MR. CORCORAN: If you're going to require them to engage in this sort of system, I suspect i~ might. MS. MCNEELEY: John? BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I can tell you East Hampton Town has three fire districts, Y~agansetu and Springs -- four. MS. MCNEELEY: And it's very hilly. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: That's why they're doing the mesh system. MR. SCHEIBEL: They have already spent the money for the public safety system. It would be that the clear system (inaudible2 . It's built to be a mesh network, and the mesh network is based on the requirements of a cell phone system where each site can populate the other site with its traffic and transparently cas~ that traffic site. MS. MCNEELEY: That's exactly ute beauty of it, what I'm getting at, and what they're getting at. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: You'll have to debaEe this later. Mr. Turner? MR. TURNER: I just wanted ~o close with eno or two quick comments. I wanted uo say tc the ,Orient Fire District that it troubles me greatly to see the Orient Association appearing to be battling the fire district. That is not the .rase. We really understand what nhey are attempting to do for us, and we are extremely grateful. I think that there are other matters thau are playing here, and I think those have tended maybe on the sidelines influencing things. I think to uhe extenu that we could make sure that anyuhing you do actually is for emergency communications and is not a mechanism for getting cellular 33 February 3, 2005 2 3 % 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 15 16 17 19 2O 22 23 24 25 communications in and is as thin and transparent an antennae as possible would be extremely important. The second point is I think this whole process is very good, and you are to be commende~ and thank you for hearing us, and thank you for spending the time with us. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you, sir. Mr. Boyd? MR. BOYD: Ma'am, chair, if you can for a moment indulge me, take off my hat as attorney for the fire district, and I'm now putting on my hat as vice president of Southold Town Fire Chief's Council. We have explored th±s issue very carefully, and we are definitely as a Fire Chief's Council pushing each and every one of our districts to go uo the 450 megahertz communication system. Mattituck already has a tower in place, Cutchogue has a tower in place. We're going to that direction. It has been investigateO. It's been inveszigated very carefully by all of ~s. I jnst wanted to lee the people know that this mat~er has been looked at at the chief's council level. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: BUt it hasn't been looked at as far as doing something cooperatively. MR. BOYD: Yes. We are doing it cooperatively se we can all talk with eno another. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: But it means that each hamlet will have te put up their own tower? MR. BOYD: Yes. Each fire district will have its own communications base. There's no question about that, but we are working together to have one system which will give us ti~e inter communication abilities that is so viEai and will also let us talk to our neighbors further to the west because we will have the equipment Eo go on the 450 megahertz, which is being use~ presently en the south fork by a goodly number ef ~he departments and almost on a monthly basis you've got another department down there going 450. That's mt, fire chief's hat, net my lawl~er hat. want district BOARD MEMBER ORLANDO: Does the lawyer hat to speak now? No. MR. BOYD: As the ~ttorney for the I would like to give the chairman of the 34 February 2, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 25 Board of fire commissioners an opportunity to speak. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Go ahead, Marty. MR. TRENT: There are a lot of things I want to say. My name is Martin Trent. I live at 4390 Orchard Street in Orient. I'm chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners from the Orient Fire District. I've been a fireman for 25 years. I have been company secretary for 17 years. I've been commissioner for 10 years. I've never seen Hr. Turner attend one of our meetings in the last several years. I have also been through the chief's line. I think we're getting way off track. We need to improve our communications. We need to do it now. We don't need a college study. i'd like to get this done in m!' lifetime. The question before you is one of aesthetics versus Nublic safety. I'~ one of those guys that about 20 years a~o fell through a floor and ended up in a basement, I'm just glad I was 30 something Ehen and didn't do it now au my age. It could happen, and I don't think I'm going to bounce back as well as I did at that point. The only thing we're asking is to put up a flag pole structure t~at we're going to make hopefully Olue gray t~at will be unobtrusive than will improve our communications and protect public safety and the lives of our firefighters and police. Simply put, we're not asking for anything more, anything less. Thank you. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Thank you, Harty. HS. WACHSBERG: Just as a point ef privilege as eno ef the people -- as you did, Ruth writing the legislation, and, Jim, the reason why we're here is that's because that's the way the legislation is written, and Ehe way the ledgislation was written was that we spent a great deal of Eime working out hew we could protect residenEial and historic areas. And the reason we're here is because there was a limit puE en ~he height in those areas, and ~e requesE a height variance you have to come ~ere, and that's why we're here, and why are we concerned about the height. It's not a question aesthetics makes it sound ar~y farty, but ~he fact is that visual 35 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 24 25 impact is one of the basic reasons why people come and protest the applications for towers. It has to do with a sense of place and that was picked up after Tony Hiss wrote a book called A Sense cf Place. And one of the points ne made was that a 10 percent change in visual impact of an area can actually transform people's sense of place 90 percent. And this was picked up by a lot of ouher communities. This is put out by Scenic Hudson. This is called Protecting Our Region's Sense of Place in the Age of Wireless Communications. This was done after Southold Town's legislation, it recommends a lot of the legislauion that Southold Town put into place, and the tenents of that legislation specifically go to protecting the residential and the historic areas. Orient is a particularly sensitive one. I'm speakin~ now as a past president of the Historical Society and of uhe Orient Association. And one of the things that snruck me as an incomer into this area was now much the community of Orient respected and sated for its past, first evidenced by nhe fc. rmation of the Historic Society in 1944, when 400 people joined, that was practically the enuire community. Then again in 1976 when an enormous number of people worked on the project no have the Historic district created, and I just want to read one thing from the book that was published at nhat time. It's the last paragraph, actually, it says: "Perhaps it's hard to know where to end a history like this because there's always ~omorrow. Perhaps it will too say that village sentiment at the time of this writing is in favor of preserving Orient from here on with as little change as possible. The community takes satisfaction in recognition of the Orient Historic District and hopes that ultimately the stretch of Main Road from the village to Orient Point can be declared an historic corridor, confirming to the world aE large that Orient as a whole is a place worth caring for." The sense of place has been extremely strong in Orient. This ~ower is sited in a very sensitive place. It's sensitive from the poin~ of view of the scenic by way ~hat was created for ~he Main Road at that point. And I won't go into the s~uff I distributed to all of us, that's why I think the Board should be asked to pay particular 36 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 ]_2 14 25 1'7 2O 21 24 25 attenEion to the conditions that were, in facE, placed en the construction efa tower in a residential and historic district. There are conditions, for instance, which have not been met. For instance, the applicant was supposed to be asked to come in with a site plan showing all of the towers in the town. There are other conditions that have not been me~. I don't know whether apart from uhe heighn whether tile acreage has been met. I'm not sure there's five acres as is requested by the legislation. I'm saying the reason why we're here, tile reason why the Orient Association has been concerned is net because we don't want the fire department te have what it needs for adequate communication, ok. viously we do. Iu's in all our inuerests, that's clear. Orient has always given the fire department what it wanted in terms of financing, always, whether it's a pension plan, construction of the building, purchase of ~he plot that it's on at the moment, we have always supported that financially. There's no question about that. But we have to also balance the other interests here as well. That's why I hope that a compromise, I really hope that Board will see its way to ask for a compromise in this instance, particularly ill re~ard to the height because that is what will make the most impact. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Than]< you, Freddie. HR. REALE: Edward Reale, Twemey, Latham, Shea and Kelley, here as attorney for the Orient Association. I'm not going to repeat things we have already talked abouu tonight or other days we were here. I have ~wo comments, essentially this is a quasi-judicial board. You're here to make a decision about the need for a height variance. What is required to do that is some proof. Hr. Scheibel, as everyone recognizes is very capable, did a very nice job, pretty pictures. One of ~he quesuions I have in going through those lovely pictures of coverage, in ~he course of proving something, if you're proving something in court, you're proving something in front of a Board you show ali the other ways something can be done. Mr. Scheibel was very careful not ~o answer the question about what would happen a~ 100 feet sr 90 feet or 75 feet. I'm sure those pretty 37 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 ll 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2% 25 graphs could have been plotted for some other heights so this Board could see whether uhe coverage was adequate at 90 or 100 or 60, w~auever, I don't know. That would have been very easily done today and been part of the project and picture, I ~hink it's an imporuant question, it goes to what Mr. Dinizio asked earlier, is it your decision to determine these things? It is in fact your decisian to determine whether the height variance is merited. Height is mighu is a nice thing to say, and I hope in future applications, if I ever need a height variance from this Board I can use than. It would be nice to prove ~hat maybe you don'E have to go quiEe as high, that's really the question, and that hasn't been shown as far as I could tell from tonight, not that anything Mr. Scheibel said was incorrect, but think Ehere's a few missing pieces, and I thi~k that's an important issue. And that goes to my second point, which is this whole thing started some time ago wi~h a telecommunications application from Beacon Wireless, and I don'E really know what's happened to that whole process or where uhey stand, and if the lease that's the record is s~ill in place and Mr. Cannuscio going Uo build this tower, and do we need the tower at 120 so we have room for not only emergency services but these other things. I uhin~ that goes to the heigh~ question as well. ~hink if anything, those quest±ohs do need to be answered. What does it look like at other heights and where is Mr. Cannuscio on this tower and how does that all fit in? Thank you. CHAIRWOM_AN OLIVA: Bill, do you have any other q~estiens? MR. SCHEIBEL: I was careful net to respond -- I did what the fire departmenE asked me to. The way uhe question was asked and answereO is, what do I need to do this. I gave them what they need. If this changes, I'll de anything the fire department asks me to do. Don't personalize ~his that Mr. Scheibel did this. HR. REALE: If any offense was taken, I'm sorry, that's no~ what I meant. MR. SCHEIBEL: It was just phraseology? HR. REALE: It was phraseology. At the last meeting I said you were credible, capable, you're a very good expert. I say the same 38 February 3, 2005 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 24 25 uonight. My only point was, there were no charts of other heights for proving to this Board -- I'm sure you're doing what the fire department asked you to do, nobody's saying you didn't. I'm not saying that either. Ail I'm saying as a matter of proof, you could show other heights and other impacts of the coverage, and I apologize if you took that personally, that's not how I meant CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: What is the Board's pleasure? BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I'd like to ask Mr. Scheibel a couple questions, do you mind? MR. SCHEIBEL: No. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: The way · understand it, the fire department approached you and they wanted a certain increase in the reliability of their radio system that the low band just wasn'~ going to do. And you determineO uhat that low band is not going to do what they want, what they think they need. MR. SCHEIBEL: And if you own a scanner, you can pretty much figure that out by listening. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: I think everybody's agreed to that. You wenu out and plotte~ on your computer this 90 percent coverage MR. SCHEIBEL: Right. BOARD MEMBER BINIZIO: What was the result of that plot? MR. SCHEIBEL: The tower at 120 feet. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: If you were to plot 85? MR. SCHEIBEL: The average will go down. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: The tower could probably be lower? MR. SCHEIBEL: Yes. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Would the tower most likely be lower or would iE definitely be lower, it could definitely be lower? MR. SCHEIBEL: Yes. And coverage will go down lower in some proportion which is nonlinear. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Yes, I agree. And I think that my statement concerning ~he red would probably hold us up that if you did it at 85 you would not really notice any difference? MR. SCHEIBEL: On the red local to the firehouse, the place you see the difference in on uhe extremities. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: On the output of 39 February l, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 25 the hand holds? MR. SCHEIBEL: Correct. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: And the difference probably wouldn't be that much in color on nhose spots? MR. SCHEIBEL: No, because there's a finite limit and that's one of the questions Mr. Turner asked actually, and I answered as best I could. Their give you a tool to do your best job at answering the route question, not of saying what's the coverage going Eo be right there, what's the coverage going to be there. There actually is a program like that. It's only been determined in systems where there's actually been determined to be a problem where the customer has paid Motorola for a certain level of coverage and that level coverage isn't apparent. There's a program called Pactware where you actually drive the whole geography, three square foot by three square foot and it plots in and out of the coverage. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: That was interesting but I don't think it was pertinent. I guess I'm trying to get at, you wouldn'n notice as ~euch difference with that program probably at 65? MR. SCHEIBEL: In the red in the center? No, all the changes the diameter in red. BO~D MEMBER DINIZIO: We're loo~ing for ~his 90 and the 90 is a number that comes out ~c, 120 feet? MR. SCHEIBEL: Right. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: And 110 feet is not 90 any more, it could be? MR. SCHEIBEL: 81. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: That's how you chose this thing, there's ne other criteria? MR. SCHEIBEL: Right. The parameters .Df tile equipment are fixed. The FCC license is fixed. You can't play wi~h what the FCC gives you. By the way, the FCC already approved it mE 120 feet. They said it was okay. They seem ts think it was appropriate. Their took away the group of people who can cause interference, the body that coordinates who can be en what channel and what the reaches of that machine are allowed to be, that is still done bI, two separate agencies, and they continue to compare notes before they grant the license and Orient's license ~0 February 3, 2005 1 2 4 5 6 7 $ 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24 25 was granted an 120 feet. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Could you go lower with that license? MR. SCHEIBEL: Sure. Can't change the pattern of the antennae, can't change the gain, can't change the operator of BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: 1307 MR. SCHEIBEL: Can't BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: the transmitter. And you can't go ge 130. That's all I have. The reason you chose this was 120 equals 90 percent efficiency? MR. SCHEIBEL: Right. When I put all the other parameters like the power of the hand held, the size of the antennae, where i~ is on the person, believe i~ or not, that all goes into the program. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: Could you plot iT for us, say at 75, 85, 90 feet? MR. SCHEIBEL: If that's a request of the fire department. There is something else, too, I have not yet been paid for any of this. I have not submitted an invoice because I typically ~o nhis as a service to my customer because I'm going ~o build the system. This is the first one where i spent -- I'm thinking around somewhere around 100 man-hours trying to do this. It's usually I go in, here's the answer -- CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: For the Board's information, would the fire department be willing to let him do a couple different heights? MR. SCHEIBEL: I actually checke~ my have a partner who has a shop down gave him ~he parameters and let him results. I west, and I run it. MR. CORCORAN: I think if you're going down that rouue you also need to know the number for each of those heights for the efficiency rates. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Being in the industry for 20 years, this Board couldn't leek at a 75 degree of frequence and a 100 degree efficiency and see much difference. You wouldn't see the difference, honestly, you would say, oh, loo~ there are some spots there that aren'~ there that ma}, look really complicated. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: It isn't? BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: Ne. Tha~ program February 3, 2005 1 2 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 1V 18 19 2O 21 22 23 25 is basic, that's what upsets me so much about the fact that requires this or asking for this. Ii! we're going to -- the Board is going to consider, we're not qualified to look at a 75 foot and a 120 foot height, look at that picture and say, oh, this will be good enough for the fire department. You won't notice that much different. He could print them out. MR. SCHEIBEL: You end up with more hc£es, when you leek at the chart. BOARD MEMBER ORLANDO: When you say it's 90 percent, is it 90 percent te the blue te the red? CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: It's the blue BOARD MEMBER ORLANDO: The blue is 90? MR. SCHEIBEL: (Inaudible) it gets to where if you're standing here the coverage is great; when you go like this {indicatingl you can't hear anything. That's what happens when you start ~o drop it. That's when you stare to get into whatever the geography you want te cover is. Ycu say it's 90 percent in that geography, that's when it's nine out of ten times. I get in first try in that geography, but like one of the things that has come up for us, is the}' run a water rescue team, se they wanted their coverage to be out elf the coast in both directions too. So if they're out in the Pecenic, I think there was a ferry acciden~ out here a couple years ago, the FCC didn't approve this. I don't think the licensing agency asked for it, but the way the system is set up, the coverage is uniform as in can be, but as you lower that number, it's the start, it's how much spetier it gets. Specifically, Plum Island we really see big differences if they're ena scene in Plum Island, and they're on the shoreline adjacent to the mine lands, the coverage would be fine, but if they're putting out a building fire that's around the 2erner where the ambulance barn is, the coverag~ wculd start te fail, that would be the difference. BOARD MEMBER ORLANDO: That's your 90 percenn? MR. SCHEIBEL: Right. Same thing wi5h Ease Harien as they went te the outer edges ot East Marion or into the next Oistrict over, that's when you get into the works now, can you hear me 42 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 24 25 now, just like the joke on the cell phone commercials. BOARD MEMBER DINIZIO: With my questioning I'm getting at, we're not qualified, this district has decided on 90 percent efficiency. If we make a decision that 85 is good enough, I have no idea, how we can make that decision. We are non qualified to do that. These people put their lives on the line, and they are saying to us, 90 percen~ is good enough, 100 percent is good enough, 90 percent is good enough, they're suill going to nave problems. I don't think we can say you can't have 90, you have to have 75 based on anything this gentleman could give us. That's the point I'm trying to get at. That extra studies, mesh up, all that. We are not, not even myself are capable of comprehending that. MR. TURNER: M!, only reply in response to this is that the same argument could be made if they said 180 feet and this Board does have an obligation to decide whether 180 feet would be too much. MR. SCHEIBEL: In order te be 99 percent I would have said 180 feet. As John said, there are multilecatien solutions. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: John, eno more t~ing. MR. TURNER: Let me -- I think the way the program works and what you do is you generate a certain amount of power on talk out at 120 feeu at ~he Orient firehouse. You then divide up the ~rea into a grid, I don't ~now what the grid parameters are, so you have this huge grid. You compute the received signal power at the center point of the ~rid wi~h the hands held at three foot off the ground for talk out so you take a hand held three foot off ~he ground, and at the center of one of ~hese grids and you compute the EransmiEted signal sErength that you're going te receive, and you give it a color, and so then you look at this, and you see at the fringes it is where you're going to i:ave difficulty as you lower the antennae height. So the question is how do things change aE the fringes ef the coverage? Now, in fact, we could learn something and these are precisely zhe plots that I have been asking for for three months. New the queszion I would ask is why hasn'z it been forthcoming? I am capable of interpreting. ~3 February 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. BOYD: Very simply, the plots are not forthcoming is because they have not been done. They are not done because we are looking for 90 percent coverage. 90 percent coverage is an industry standard. It is a usual sort of thing. The fire district doesn't want to settle for less than 90 percent. Ninety percent is important for the safety of the firefighters not only the Orient firefighners, but other firefighter that might some no assist them in a mutual aid situation. We have to get the coverage outside in the water area around the district. Orient has a boat, rescue boat that goes out. The other fire districts have rescue Ooats. I'm not going to bore yo~ or go overboard with ideas of the various things than may happen that would require the convergence of emergency resources in than area, we all know what it can be, so let's please provide the coverage, the radio coverage that's necessary no keep all these people safe. That's what it is about. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: You have a technical piece of information, ma'am? I would like to bring this hearing to a close? MS. LIBERTORE: My name is Mary Ann L~bertore, and I am a new resident of Orient, and I am so grateful that John brought up the point that nas been disturbing me all day, which is I rented with my significant other in Orient for nine years, and then this past June we bought a house and it's really difficult for Sidney an~ I to even think of disagreeing with our neighbors, all of whom have been massively kind to us. We live across the field from ~he ~ower, an~ that's net my beef, but when I was coming out here to speak tonight at the request ef my colleagues, I was coming out on the bus and eno ef the things Yhat was so striking te me was all of these towers, and you go along the LIE and you see them one town after another, and I guess you only see tilings when you want te look for them, but I saw them today, and I was grateful to Mr. Scheibel for mennioning 911 because the reason that Sidney isn't speaking tonight, my fiance, is that he's a lawyer back in town, and he is working on the FreeOem Tower. He is lucky enough te be working en rebuilding the World Trade Center, and I was born and raised en Staten Island, se at my core I'~u a cop's kid. I grew up with four cops and all February 3, 2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 firemen, so I understand the issue of fire safety, particularly after 9/11 when many people that I grew up with there, I understand what these fellows are talking about. I didn't know as a new resident ef Orient that we could go te fire department meetings, and, Mr. Commissioner, if you want me, I'll be there, and I'll do fundraising for you and everything, but I think as a Staten Islander, I have a special thing te share with you all. I was born right at the end of World War II, 11 months after my father came home after being on Utah Beach. I grew up in Staten Island in the '50s. I was a small child in the '50s. was like growing up in Kansas. I think one ef tile things that struck me se much when I came out here 10 }'ears ago for the first time was hew this place £oeks just like Staten Island ii1 the '50s with tile wetlands and the beautiful golden fields and these wonderful trees and I think if you permit this tower to be built at this house are you going establish the tipping point, the thing that will degrade our portion of the east end, not just Orient, East Harion, and I think the logic is let the Greenport tower and the mesh system be the new paradigm for how to protect these firemen. That's all I'd like to say. CHAIRWOMAN OLIVA: I'm going te make a motion te close the hearing anO reserve -- MS. EMO: My name is Robin Emo, I live in East Harion. And we had a meeting a wee~ age on the same topic and eno of the questions I asked Hr. Scheibel and he said they work even better than all t~ese other cell and radio situations but it was all about cost. I asked how much. It was $1,000 per satellite phone, 15 phones would be required for East Marion, I doubt there's a whole lot more would be required for Orient. And problem ne stated was you wouldn't be able te talk to people in the other towns, but if everybody get the satellite phones, which are Oetter quality, we wouldn't have towers. We wouldn't have discussions, we wouldn't have to worry about health risks that may or ~ay not be involved in tbe ~owers, and I think it's something ~hat should be looked into, and I wonder if the cell phone companies hadn't approached the firehouses, would they even be talking about this. Why didn't we 45 February 3, 2005 1 2 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 25 know that there were problems with the communications systems until the cellular companies appeared on the scene? MR. BOYD: Lawyer and fire chief hat these problems with the communications in the fire departments have been growing over the years. It's no~ a question that it started all ,of a sudden, basically it's been getting progressively worse. We're finally te the point where we have to do something about CHAIRWONLA_N OLIVA: I'd like te make a moEion te close the hearing reserving decision un,il later. ISee minutes for resolution.} {Time ended: 8:30 p.m.) 46 February 3, 2005 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 ll 12 13 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 2% 25 CERTIFICATION I, Florence V. Wiles, Notary Public for the State of New York, do hereby certify: THAT the within transcript is a true record of the testimony given. I further certify that I am not related by blood or marriage, to any of the parties to this action; and THAT I am in no way interested in uhe outcome of this matter. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I ]lave hereunto set my hand this 3rd day of February, 2005. Florence V. Wiles 47 February 3, 2005