RADIO SYSTEM SUB-COMMITTEE Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Jerry Morrow, Chairman

Chairman Morrow called this Radio System sub-committee meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. with the following Supervisors in attendance: Randy Douglas, Sue Montgomery-Corey, Mike Marnell and Jerry Morrow. (Randy Preston and Tom Scozzafava had been previously excused).

Department Heads present were: Don Jaquish, Dan Manning, Dan Palmer and Deb Palmer.

Also present were: Mike Blaise-Emergency Services; Aaron Kellett-ORDA; Travis LePage- Federal Engineering; Jacqui Murray-Murray Law Firm and Dave Whitford-AES Northeast.

MORROW: I am going to call this Radio System sub-committee to order. I would ask that everyone come up and take a seat at a microphone because this is going to be taped so speak into your microphones please. Don’t be shy, come right up and grab a microphone. Thank you all for coming, I really appreciate it and I thank Randy for asking for this meeting. We are going to start off with introductions so everybody knows who is here. I am Jerry Morrow, Supervisor of the Town of Chesterfield and Chair of this sub-committee.

Dave Whitford-AES Northeast Aaron Kellet-General Manager, Whiteface Mountain Jacqui Phillips-Murray, attorney that was hired by the County to do site acquisition and permitting Mike Blaise, Deputy Director, Emergency Services Mike Mascarenas, Essex County Planning Sue Montgomery-Corey, Town of Minerva Randy Douglas, Town of Jay Supervisor and Chair of the Board Dan Manning, Essex County Attorney Dan Palmer, Essex County Manager Mike Marnell, Supervisor, Town of Schroon Lake Don Jaquish, Director of Emergency Services, Essex County Travis LePage, Federal Engineering

MORROW: Thank you very much. I know we have a video, a slide show today but I am going to turn it right over to our expert in charge, Don Jaquish to start out.

JAQUISH: I would like to start off by asking Travis to go through a presentation on the project to give you all a overall comprehensive picture of what has been going on.

LEPAGE: Thanks Don and good morning everyone. It is a beautiful day to talk about the radio project, right? Welcome to the radio sub-committee meeting today. What we are going to do this morning, I was actually looking back at my files and the last time that we presented for the board was December 13, 2010 so a lot has changed since then as I am sure you have heard and have been discussing over the time here. Some of the things that you probably are thinking about in your minds is what are we really doing with this project? What are the benefits? Maybe secondly, why is this project so complicated or does it appear to be that Page 2 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 complicated - the truth is, it is. We will go through it and highlight some of those areas and Jacqui from the Murray Law Firm and Dave of AES Northeast will also assist me in discussing site specific challenges, constraints and so forth. Another question you might ask is - why is the cost what it is? We will take a look at some of those things. Maybe lastly you are thinking how is this project going to move forward? How is it going to get done within the foreseeable future in some type of a reasonable budget? So it is my hope this morning that as we walk through this interactive presentation that we get issues out on the table, have a two way discussion/dialogue on what people are thinking and what questions you have so that we can answer those here today. Just a general overview of the system and who is involved. The players essentially for the vendor side as you are probably aware is Motorola Solutions for the land/mobile radio portion of the project and Alcatel Lucent for the microwave radio network. Wells Communications is providing paging equipment, some installation services. Federal Engineering, who I am with, is providing engineering and program management services. I am going to be pausing as we walk through this presentation just so we have time to talk about everything. You can see here now essentially the core of the network with the various spur sites. Now the network when it was built comprises 17 sites plus a reflector or passive repeater which will be located at Saddle Hill and you will see that there is no power or anything, hence the term passive. It reflects the microwave radio signal from the Lewis PSB to the other site. So we will take a look at that. The core network here, you will have data rates capacity of 150 megabytes per second over the core network and between 24 and 50 megabytes per second on the spur links. If you are not familiar with maybe what the spurs are, there are seven spur sites and those are the sites that you can see that have only one channel if you will or link into the network and those include Angier Hill, Black Mountain and some others which we will take a look at. So right off the bat as far as what are the benefits of this project? You will see what we are doing but what are the benefits? Well first off the County is replacing an aging microwave radio network which a similar story is I am working with a County not too far from here. They have a microwave network that was put in in the late 60's to early 70's and they spend thousands and thousands of dollars a month just maintaining it, they are putting band-aid on it and they are just now in the process of doing what you are doing to upgrade. So you are improving and replacing outmoded technology’s and aging infrastructure. Obviously you are improving coverage. It seems unfortunately that this area is becoming increasingly prone to natural and man-made disasters; I know you have had quite a few over the last few years so ever more the time to improve communications for public safety and public service agency’s who need to protect the community. Another benefit is, is it economy of scale? You are sharing the costs with the State Police, NYS Electric and Gas and other radio partners in the region and surrounding counties. When it is completed will be one of the first accomplishments for the Adirondack Regional Interoperable Communications Consortium (known as ARICC) which of course includes Essex County and seven surrounding counties being - Clinton, Franklin, Hamilton, Montgomery, Saratoga, Warren and Washington Counties. So another benefit is you are sharing the costs. You are building really a super highway. Lots of capacity on this network. Future uses could be, you could actually transport internet data over the network for the school districts and other County and local municipalities - there is that band width there so you are building something for now and for the future. Another benefit of building this network now and with the partners that you have is that you are eligible and have already received quite a bit of grant funding for this project which is very, very important because there are many counties in the State who are in similar position who Page 3 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 unfortunately haven’t teamed up with a consortium and obviously one of the requirements is that it be a multi-jurisdictional, multi-regional project in order to receive those grant funds. So those are just some of the benefits up-front. Now what we will do is take a walk through site by site and look at what is going on at the sites. Again the equipment that is going to be installed and the players that are going to be doing it. We will start at the Lewis Public Safety building which everyone is familiar with and at the Lewis Public Safety building what will be installed for the microwave radio network is a 6' dish which you can see depicted there, it will actually be a wall mount on the roof and that will be pointed toward Saddle Hill, the Saddle Hill passive reflector which is approximately a northeasterly direction. Other improvements at the Public Safety building to accommodate the microwave antenna on the roof will be a cable tray and an ice bridge and inside will be upgrades to the electrical equipment to support the Motorola land/mobile radio paging equipment. So that is essentially not major work I would say compared to some of the other sites but pretty key because another penetration is going to have to be made in the roof which requires a dog house type of interface for the cables and so forth.

JAQUISH: I would just like to say that the original installation was a roof mount however the roof is not structurally capable of holding the weight of that dish with the sandbagged supports - is that correct Dave? That is why we went to the wall mount.

WHITFORD: I think that somebody else worked on that.

LEPAGE: Yeah, as a matter of fact Don you are correct and thanks for bringing up that point. What would have had to be done if the roof top, if the microwave antenna was mounted on say a ballast type of mount on the roof top, probably and I think the estimate was around $150,000 to $200,000 in structural improvements would have to be done to the Lewis Public Safety building to support that dish so it took a while and it wasn’t an easy process because one change in a system like this with multiple vendors, it just has a rippling affect with designs and FCC licensing and coordination. Even the dish moved from 25' to 30.5', that is a huge thing and it requires many hours of going back and forth with engineering, the FCC, the vendors and so forth and so on. So that is a good point Don that the County was able to actually save quite a bit of money by doing that. There are some other examples that I will point out as we go through the presentation of where some engineering work-arounds were implemented to contain costs. From the Lewis PSB, the microwave, the 6' dish is aimed at the Saddle Hill reflector, again a passive reflector and this is a picture of a typical reflector. Obviously this is, I believe, in the southern California area with the burned out grass you see but anyway, you will have an installation similar to that on Saddle Hill. Essentially that is an 8' x 10' panel similar to a mirror and that will reflect the microwave radio signals to and from the Lewis PSB to Wells Hill which is a key network site and we will take a look at that next. Some of the improvements besides the passive repeater that are being done at Saddle Hill include an access drive I will call it for erosion control and things. It is required that they put in culverts and things like that so a lot of clearing and grubbing of trees has to be done in order for a concrete truck to be able to get up to pour the foundation for that passive reflector. Also a fence will be put around that so essentially I would say the major improvement at that site is the access road itself, that is a lot of work and a lot of trees to be removed.

JAQUISH: Jacqui is here but just to elaborate, the complexity of getting permitting to build this. Page 4 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012

The way we originally designed it and when we had to go back for a wider easement, a 50' easement. It is just very complex. Every time you try to do something in this area you have more and more requirements and that escalates our costs to be frank.

MURRAY: Every time we had to delve into developing a raw land site and fortunately we were able to limit that by developing a shared system where we utilized existing sites to literally the greatest extent practicable. We have 17 sites in the system. This is the only entirely new communication site that is proposed to be developed and in that it is only with a 35' structure that requires no utilities or other public services. In terms of the access driveway, we originally leased a site that had a 12' wide access easement because we did not anticipate that the site would have to have routine visits given that it is really just a big mirror as Travis said. However, because of the steep hills at the site there were some storm water management controls that were required to be installed along the access driveway to maintain pre-storm water runoff condition, post construction. So that in turn as Travis also said gave rise to a little bit of a ripple affect where then we had to go back to the landowner. Fortunately the landowner granted us a lease amendment without requiring any further consideration but again just an extra step in the process so that we could meet the design and permitting requirements so that the site would become permissible.

LEPAGE: Thank you Jacqui. Any questions regarding Saddle Hill? I will add one more thing - as far as the clearing and grubbing that needs to be done with the trees and the ground of course. Not only do trees need to be removed for the access drive but also the trees need to be trimmed and some need to be removed for the actual signal, the microwave radio path to Saddle Hill.

MURRAY: Travis, could I just make one other point about Saddle Hill. I do note that on the agenda one of the items that we are considering here is costs. When we originally were looking at the design for this system we were looking at having to lease space on an existing tower that was owned by Verizon Wireless and also having to extend that tower which would have been a significant cost. In lieu of that we avoided having to go through that process and we were able to lease this site for $2400/year which is significantly less than what we would have had to pay Verizon for a term of years.

LEPAGE: Very good point, thank you Jacqui. We will look at the next site and this is probably the Big Kahuna of sites here. This is Belfry Mountain and we are looking a south/southeasterly direction towards Wells - I am sorry, I am out of order here. We are actually looking at Wells Hill next which is in a north/northwesterly direction looking at the Wells Communication site. Wells Hill of course is an existing site that currently supports the existing County microwave network and also that tower there that you see is a 20' tower currently. A new 50' tower will be implemented at that site as part of this project to support again the new County microwave network and also the County highway department. A new tower, again 55' and a 12' x 22' shelter, it weights approximately 60,000 pounds. As I mentioned, that tower will be removed following the installation of the new tower, the equipment and turn up and testing of the system. One of the reasons why a new tower is needed at that site is not only for the elevation to make the path back to Saddle Hill but also to support two new 6' microwave dishes, one will go back as I mentioned to Saddle Hill and the other one will be pointed toward Belfry Mountain, which Page 5 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012

I got ahead of myself before, and that is where we will be looking at that is one of the major sites in this network. It is actually a key site. You will see it has a number of antennas that are going to be implemented. Currently there is a site there and I should let Jacqui talk about that but some issues with the existing landowner and the adjacent parcel. It is more efficient for the County to develop a new site just next to the existing site. So looking at a south/southeasterly direction down to as I mentioned Belfry Mountain, this site along with the Lewis Public Safety building will support microwave, land/mobile radio and paging. This is the existing site as I mentioned that will be, the Wells Hill tower will be decommissioned and this site eventually will also be decommissioned and Jacqui, I will turn this over to you for just a moment to discuss some of the issues that really added a lot not only to the cost but to the time line of the project with the Belfry Mountain landowner and site owner issues.

MURRAY: First I think it is important to note that the existing tower at Belfry Mountain historically has suffered from lack of structural capacity. There was a retrofit that was performed about five years ago by two wireless carriers who currently co-locate on the site and that was just to bring it to the brink of structural capacity to support their equipment. The County had the foresight and included in the carrier’s leases that this tower would ultimately have to be replaced some day for the anticipated upgrade of the public safety radio system. To that end our first step was to approach the current landowner, Harris Communications, and seek to amend our existing 99 year lease agreement with Harris in order to get a new spot on the same two acre parcel on which to install a replacement tower. When we approach Harris Communications they demanded $18,000 per year rent plus 50% of co-location revenue. In doing so, and in response to that we tried to have fruitful negotiations with them and they bore no fruit so we started looking at other options that would lead to long term cost savings. Anytime that we have the opportunity to avoid a lease agreement it equates to long term cost savings because any lease agreement is going to be something that the County is going to not only be locked into but need for decades in order to continue to maintain the system. So what we did was approach the landowner who owns the 38 acres that immediately surround Belfry Mountain. That landowner was willing to grant us an option to purchase a half acre parcel for $20,000 so in lieu of paying $18,000 a year for decades plus giving up our co-location revenue, we were able to get a purchase option for a one time payment of $20,000 a year. We just recently extended that purchase option for another year so that we would have time to complete the permitting process without acquiring the property. Since that time we also have received and yielded to requests by AT&T and Verizon Wireless to expand their existing facility. What we noted in response to those requests was that had the County installed the tower with sufficient structural capacity to support those carriers, in essence those carriers would be benefitting from the county’s investments. At one point AT&T offered to pay for the tower in exchange for a rent abatement and in good faith, without a written agreement in place, they proceeded to pay for all the engineering costs in regard to the replacement tower - substantially all, I should say. We did have some costs incurred already for visual analysis that we had to do with the APA. Thereafter, because of timing and the need to try and expedite the project and in particular with regard to this site, the County took back control of the construction but negotiated a capital contribution with AT&T equal to approximately what one-third of the cost of the new tower would be. The County also demanded an equal share from Verizon Wireless if they wished to expand their antenna array on the new tower. So at the end of the day, if both carriers seek to expand their antenna rays, we know that both want to. We have a verbal agreement with AT&T and again they Page 6 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 already made an investment in the engineering without any written agreement. The goal is to have the County pay for one-third of the capital improvement at that site and get a capital reimbursement from the carriers since they are benefitting. In terms of the site itself, the APA has reviewed the site. They have provided us with comments on the site. We replied to their comments. Most recently the last outstanding items were an FAA determination of no-hazard which was received in early October as well as a no-affect determination by the State Historic Preservation Office. We submitted those items to the APA on October 15th together with our amendment to the option to demonstrate that we still have control over the site and right now we are in the midst of the 15 day period for the APA to deem our entire application complete for all the sites in the project. There is one item that is pending and that is NYS Police are required to render their SEQRA findings. I did speak to NYS Police this morning on the way up here and they are actively working on it and I expect that their SEQRA findings will be issued within a matter of days. Obviously they have been participating in the review of the entire project since they started participating back in March 2010 and entered into a memorandum of agreement. So as Travis mentioned, this particular site, it really is probably the highest profile, most capital intense and time intense in terms of permitting and construction prospective. However, everything from the engineering side has been completed and from the permitting side has been completed and at this point it will no longer further delay moving forward in the permitting process.

LEPAGE: Thanks Jacqui. Any questions for Jacqui regarding Belfry Mountain? Okay, I will add that the new tower to be installed is a 195' free standing self-supporting tower. It will house without, per the current design it will house over 90 antennas. This is a main hub for the microwave radio network. Five new dishes will be put on the site. A 6' dish will go back to Wells Hill that we looked at. Two dishes, a 10' and an 8' dish will go to Terry Mountain. A 6' and an 8' dish will also go to Grandpa’s Knob which we will be taking a look at next and also the County, in addition to the tower the County will be installing a new 12' x 24' communications shelter at the site.

MURRAY: Could I add one more thing about the site and it is significant and again it goes to cost and deferral of costs. There are several co-locators in addition to the wireless providers that are on the site including Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation and Contact paging. We have DOT on that site and service sites. Those co-locators have negotiated new leases so they are also paying rent. NIMo’s rent increases as a result of re-locating to the new tower and we have also requested rent increases from each of the carriers in addition to the capital contribution because they are going to be able to expand their facilities. I wanted to make the point because there will continue to be a stream of revenue that comes into the County as a result of the replacement tower project.

LEPAGE: The improvements in addition to the tower and the shelter, at least on the County side, will also be a shared generator. It will be a generator that will be shared between Essex County and at this point AT&T. The County is looking at purchasing it off state contract so you can save the money in going out to a bid for that. I have been working with Linda Wolf on that process. Additionally, of course a new 12' wide access road will be put in leading up to the site. The compound will have to be of course cleared, leveled and grubbed and then additional security perimeter fence will be put in. Of course along with all of that comes the electrical work that needs to be done, conduits, underground conduits. Of course the foundations for the shelter, the foundation for the tower and then after the installation of the equipment a number of electrical Page 7 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 grounding systems need to be installed. One of the post cut over if you will activities that the County will undertake is obviously decommissioning the existing Belfry Mountain tower eventually but also relocating the antennas from this tower for those parties that currently have leases with the County to move to the new tower, that will be a process that will have to take place after the new site is installed and tested. So leaving Belfry Mountain and heading in a south/southeasterly directly toward Grandpa’s Knob which of course is in Caselton, Vermont. You can see hopping over 87 there and going over and jumping the border to Vermont. At this site here, Grandpa’s Knob is an existing 250' tower, a broadcast tower primarily owned by Vermont Public Television. The County will be, this is only going to support microwave services for the County and the State Police. Six microwave dishes will be installed on this tower as part of the new project. Two dishes will go back to Belfry, one 6' dish will go to Black Mountain which is a State Police spur site and again the spur doesn’t have any other outlet out of the site, there is only one inlet/outlet into the - one path into the network. Then two dishes will go to Gore Mountain which is a key core ring site, primarily a State Police existing DEC/State Police site. Then of course a dish to Mount Defiance which we will look at next. One of the things I should add with Grandpa’s Knob is that it did require some retrofitting to support the added loads and that was completed about a month and a half ago so the site is essentially ready for installation of the antennas. I will add that in the exiting equipment building the County is going to co-locate within that building to save having to spend the money to put in their own shelter so you will be co-locating within a portion of the existing equipment building, it is quite a large building, and upgrading some of the electrical; some ice bridge modifications and I think that is the extent of it. Dave, anything to add? Dave was involved with the design of it.

WHITFORD: I think that covers it - ice bridge and electrical.

LEPAGE: Okay and again you are tapping into their generator so you don’t need to purchase a generator for the site so again, sharing resources to save money. Moving over to Mount Defiance which is essentially in a north/northwesterly direction from Grandpa’s Knob, you can see the Grandpa’s Knob site there and like I mentioned, heading in a north/northwesterly direction over to Fort Ticonderoga is the site known as Mount Defiance. At Mount Defiance, you can see the camera tilting down to that site and you will see a picture of the existing building rooftop. That is a picture as I mentioned of the existing building rooftop and of course located at Fort Ticonderoga, this is a site owned by the Fort itself. This site will support all three services. When I say all three services again that is land/mobile radio, the LMR, low band paging and the microwave radio network at this site. In order to support that two new microwave radio dishes will be installed on the roof using - you can actually see one of them is going to be installed on one of these brackets here that you can see. The one microwave radio dish will point back to Grandpa’s Knob and then the other one will point to Angier Hill which we will be taking a loot at next. Now there are a number of considerations to discuss regarding Mount Defiance. Obviously the County is currently located there but they are moving into what is an existing generator room. Since this is a dated building there unfortunately is asbestos in the tiles and I will just have Dave quickly give a high level overview of the extent of the work and the processes that he has been going through not only to deal with that but also to design the mounts for the antennas and also looking at the structural integrity of the building in addition to the backup generator that the County will have to install. Page 8 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012

WHITFORD: I think Travis pretty much covered it but it is a partial renovation of an existing building there obviously owned by Fort Ti. So we will take the old generator room and gut that and renovate it and that is where the County will house its communication equipment. Unfortunately there is asbestos in there, it has to be abated, not the entire building but in that room. We are putting up a new small tower for one of the dishes next to the stone wall facing Grandpa’s Knob. We need a new electrical service up there because it is only 100 amp electrical service on Mount Defiance which is not big enough to support the County equipment and future expansion so there is a new electrical service scheduled with NYSEG as well. I think that is it. The emergency power system obviously, an outdoor generator and that will be connected into the existing electrical network there and support everybody’s equipment.

LEPAGE: Right and the only decommissioning to be done at this site is the removal of the existing generator tank, correct Dave?

WHITFORD: That generator hasn’t run for years, it is defunct and never been repaired. It hasn’t run for years.

LEPAGE: Any questions on Mount Defiance? Okay, heading just about due north we are going to hop over to Angier Hill. Angier Hill is a spur as you can see, there is no path leading out of Angier Hill so this is a spur site. Angier Hill, the County as with similarly to Grandpa’s Knob will be co-locating on the existing tower and in the existing equipment building so you save having to improve implementing a new tower or support structures and also a shelter. So at Angier Hill today I have a picture right there as a 100' free standing tower. All three services will be supported at this site for the County. Essentially the only improvements that the County is doing in addition obviously to installing the equipment is to replace the ice bridge which is a metal support structure that runs between the communications tower and the shelter to protect the transmission lines from falling ice and other potential debris. So a new ice bridge will be put in and of course along with that a minor modification to the existing building, it is called an entry port and essentially it is a port in the wall with a number of holes in it to support or allow the conduits to go in and out into the equipment room. So that is the extent of the improvements to be done at Angier Hill and at Angier Hill a 6' new microwave dish will be installed which will point back to Mount Defiance. Heading back over to Grandpa’s Knob core site, one of the things that we will take a look at here is a path that has now been re-designed and this is the path that originally the system design was going to involve a path between Grandpa’s Knob and Big Birch. Birch Hill tower owned by Washington County. You will see a picture of that tower in a just a moment. Now it turns out that this tower, although in good condition, at least now it supports the existing equipment and in order to put anything more on that tower it would require hundreds of thousands of dollars in structural improvements which really is not worth it for the County. So this is a 250' tower which originally as I mentioned was going to be used in the design but however this was some design engineering work-arounds allowed the Grandpa’s Knob to serve as the core site that would point to the State Police Black Mountain spur and also to Gore Mountain so this site was removed from the design due to the overloading and the need for structural improvements to be done - it really would not be worth it. You can see the path again looking at the green lines, that signifies the microwave links. This is the State Police spur site, Black Mountain which is now based on the design going to be served from the Grandpa’s Knob tower - here is a picture of that site. This is a State Police Page 9 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 only site, the County is not performing any enhancements or any improvements to this site. Currently you can see the base of it there, it is an 80' tall fire tower and at this site will be a 6' microwave dish pointed back to Grandpa’s Knob and of course this is also a spur site. You can see those metal panels there are ice shields to protect the shelter and other equipment from falling ice. They are not solar, we are not that green yet. Of course looking back at the Grandpa’s Knob core site to the Birch Hill site which again we by-passed in the design to save that headache to be honest with you and a lot of money. From Grandpa’s Knob we are looking up to Gore Mountain in a westerly directly and at Gore Mountain there is an existing fire tower, this is currently a DEC/State Police site. This will house as part of the new county’s project will house microwave and paging services so two out of the three services will be hosted at Gore Mountain, I apologize, all three services will be, microwave, paging and LMR will be served at the site. Again a 66' fire tower and at the site three new dishes. Two dishes back to Grandpa’s Knob for diversity and also a 6' dish to Blue Mountain which we will take a look at next. The State Police will be putting in a new 10 x 24 shelter at this site in which the County will co-locate their equipment so again a benefit of the partnered approach to the network. Jacqui, anything about Gore Mountain?

MURRAY: Yeah, I think Gore Mountain is an important part of the history of how we got where we are today with this project. When we first commenced this project we always had Gore Mountain in the design, in fact that was before my time and involvement with the County. However, it was not the Gore Mountain fire tower, it was a site that the County currently has under lease with Barton Mines which is also located at Gore Mountain and a stones throw away from this tower. In evaluating that tower to support the new equipment required for the county’s system, the county’s structural engineering discovered that there really wasn’t a structural issue in the first instance that was precluding the County from co-locating on the tower and amending its lease to get more space; rather it was physical availability. That tower at Barton Mines was so loaded that regardless of structural capacity there just simply wasn’t physical space to support the county’s antennas. So the County had a couple options - one was to build a second tower immediately next to the Barton Mines site in which case they would have to enter into a new ground lease with Barton Mines and pay rent for a stream of years and incur the capital costs of constructing an entirely new tower. The other was to see if we could find some available space at the tower that we are looking at right now that is owned by the State Police and under DEC’s jurisdiction. As you can see, that tower already has a lot of equipment on it which led to the first of our on-going situation with State Police to share microwave equipment. So this site was really the impetuous for the entire sharing arrangement because had we not decided to at least share the microwave hop between Gore Mountain and Mount Morris, originally we were thinking of just a three microwave hop sharing arrangement, we would not have been able to get onto this tower and avoid the cost of having to install an entirely new structure and enter into a lease agreement for a term of years with a private entity for a private site. Of course the history here is that once we discovered we could share the hops that are supported by this site, State Police said why don’t we try and share the entire system and agreed to contribute up to $1.8 million dollars just toward the equipment in addition to the capital improvements that are already owned such as the equipment that is existing at Gore Mountain. On that note I also want to just mention that as part of the State Police contribution to the shared microwave network, aside from just the money that they are investing in the microwave equipment itself, it is also contributing resources including the new equipment shelter that is needed at Gore and the structural retrofitting that will be required at Gore to support the new Page 10 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 antennas.

LEPAGE: Thank Jacqui. Leaving Gore Mountain and heading in a north/northwesterly direction we will look over to Big Blue. Blue Mountain consists of two sites. One is a NYSEG site which you can see there on the lower portion and then also a DEC/State Police site. At Blue Mountain the County will have microwave and paging services installed on the existing tower. This is a 195' guide tower and essentially the County will be co-locating within NYSEG’s existing equipment shelters. There is an old co-location space as we refer to it and a new space. The old co-location space will house the paging and radio equipment and then the new shelter will be the microwave equipment. On the tower the County will install four new microwave dishes. Two dishes will go back to Gore Mountain and also a smaller dish, a 2' dish (because the path is very short) it will be connecting this Blue Mountain NYSEG up to the Blue Mountain State Police/DEC site and also a 6' dish will be installed to complete the path to Mount Morris which we will take a look at next. So another case with Blue Mountain of minimizing the county’s cost by co-locating on the existing tower and in the existing shelters.

MURRAY: Travis, can I just make one note about Blue Mountain because it explains how NYSEG became involved in the project and the shared microwave system. So once we decided to share space and a microwave hop from Gore Mountain to Blue Mountain, the next step was to approach the owner of Blue Mountain tower, NYSEG and seek to lease space to co-locate our antennas there. In doing so, NYSEG said well maybe we can share that microwave hop as well with them because they already had an existing microwave hop from Blue Mountain to Mount Morris. We are in the process of upgrading their public utility radio communications network as well, a project that they started in 2007. So that was how NYSEG became involved as with the savings that we received from not having to lease a new private site at Gore. The same applies with regard to both Blue Mountain and Mount Morris because NYSEG controls and has existing lease holds for both the Blue Mountain site and the Mount Morris site. Obviously that is another cost avoidance and NYSEG is going to be contributing the use of its space. I should note that part of the use of that space is not to support solely shared microwave equipment, it is going to support the county’s paging equipment which they don’t share at all and they are not charging any rent for that use as part of this arrangement.

PALMER: I would just add that why NYSEG - the reality is that NYSEG is a public safety utility. There are first responders for whenever anything goes wrong, they are required to get out there and restore power so they really are a critical part of this and ultimately that is why they were interested in part of this as well - they are under such pressure to restore power during these things but they have to communicate during that period too.

MURRAY: To Dan’s point too, Department of Homeland Security has identified 17 types of critical infrastructure that exists nationally, one of which is our electric utilities.

LEPAGE: So the network to reinforce the network will be public safety but also public service and utilities. As I mentioned looking in a north/northwesterly direction to Mount Morris which Jacqui mentioned is another NYSEG site. This will be a microwave only site for the County - that is a picture of the existing shelter there and what NYSEG is going to do, this is not coming out of the Page 11 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 county’s pocketbook per se, NYSEG is putting in a new 30' free standing tower at this site. Also on the site will be two microwave dishes, one will go to Blue Mountain which we just took a look at and the other one will be pointed to Mount Pisgah..

MURRAY: As Travis said, that is a site that NYSEG is treating as a resource and is contributing to the County project for which the County will incur no cost.

LEPAGE: From Mount Morris looking in north/northeasterly direction, we follow the path that I mentioned over to Mount Pisgah. The Mount Pisgah site will host all three services - land/mobile radio, microwave and low band paging for the County. This is an existing State Police site, the State Police have a presence here. The existing site itself is owned by Harris Communications. There is also a Verizon compound located on the campus. At the top of Mount Pisgah here, that will support all three services. This is a 100' self supporting tower owned by the State Police, I believe.

MURRAY: The State Police own the tower, Harris owns the land but one of the critical features of the land is that it is encumbered by a permanent easement in favor of Verizon New York to install, maintain, improve, construct, reconstruct any communications facilities that is to the benefit of its successors and assigns and the reason I mention that is because as with Belfry Mountain, Harris Communications demanded rent from the County of $18,000/year in order to install a new equipment shelter that would be needed to support the county’s equipment at the base of the State Police’s tower. We looked at different options and of course the title to the site and noticed that it was encumbered by Verizon and went to Verizon New York and were granted an assignment and lease of their interest, their easement interest for one dollar and so we were able to avoid the long term expense of leasing land from Harris because there was another party that had an interest in that land that was sufficient to serve the county’s purposes and they were willing to grant it at a very reasonable, nominal rate.

LEPAGE: As with Belfry Mountain and also Wells Hill which we already took a look, the County will be installing a new communication shelter at Mount Pisgah, that will be a 12' x 28' shelter with a generator installed within the actual shelter. There are some issues that we should bring forth at least as far as access and the ability to get the shelter up to the site. This is a very, very difficult site to access, especially with heavy and large equipment. As a matter of fact tomorrow, Mike Blaise, is meeting with the State Police and your shelter vendor who is United Concrete Products out of New Hampshire to look at the best way to get the shelter up there which with the generator will weigh approximately 73,000 pounds. So they are going to do a site walk to determine first of all the best way to get the shelter up the summit of the mountain and then how it can be off-loaded. What you can’t see here is there are some overhead power lines and of course a number of trees around the area and with the distance required for the distance of a boom of a crane to swing, that could create an issue or we need to remove some trees. So we are going to try and minimize the work that has to be done to get that shelter there. So that is one of the challenges that we have had to deal with at Mount Pisgah. Leaving Mount Pisgah, we will head in a south/southeasterly direction to a NYS Police spur site which is Ray Brook and everyone is familiar with that campus there, it houses the State Police and DEC. As I mentioned that is a State Police, as far as the cost is concerned, it is a State Police only site which is basically their microwave access into the network. At this point we are heading in a north/northeasterly direction to Terry Mountain. Of course Page 12 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 the County did purchase this site and owns it. At this site there will be a number of improvements done. Originally when the County purchased it, it was a 895' guide tower that was since reduced to 760', essentially an old television transmitter was removed from the top, hence there is no more need for that added height to the tower and also of course that makes it more vulnerable to wind and potential structural issues. So the County did have that reduced 760', this is a microwave only site for the County. As I mentioned the County will install a new shelter at this site, it is 12' x 16' shelter. This is a lighter shelter, only about 45,000 pounds, hence no generator inside because you will be tapping into the existing generator located in the main equipment building. Five microwave dishes will be installed on this tower for the new network. You will have a dish back to Mount Pisgah. A dish to Plattsburgh which is another NYSEG spur site. Two dishes to Belfry Mountain and also a dish to Little Whiteface.

JAQUISH: I would just like to note that the purchase of that site was at $550,000. The reason that we opted to do it that way is our original approach to Hearst and Jackie can verify this, I believe it was $40,000 a month they wanted.

MURRAY: Yes and that was based on what they were charging per vertical foot of the existing four towers to other users. They were basing it totally on the market and I was able to verify it based on prior work with a carrier that had co-located on one of their other towers. In addition, I think it is worth noting that because there are four towers there that already have space leased and existing leases that are on-going for terms of years with commercial carriers and other users, the site came with $96,000 of annual lease revenue so that offset the capital cost and initial outlay by the County. I would expect that that number would grow not only by rent escalators that are already existing but also because of the anticipated need for particularly wireless providers to expand serviceability and increase their capacity of the network.

JAQUISH: We have been approached by others so we foresee more revenue in the future but we don’t want to become distracted right now and lose focus on what we are doing with this radio project. I do foresee more revenue coming to the County in the future.

MORROW: This isn’t a design of the system but have we started to - that is the same Terry Mountain that we are paying $4000 to $5000 a month for electricity on there? Have we started charging the other vendors up there?

JAQUISH: No, we have not. What we have done however is we encountered a problem Jerry. There were no meters other than one single meter that went up to the top of the mountain. In saying that, we would have to parse out each tenants electrical costs and the problem with that is that some tenants use far more power than others so what we have done is via Techtonic Engineering, we hired Plumb Electric. Plumb Electric has gone up and they have located each service to each tenant. We are going to install watt meters on each tenants service and that way we can parse out and bill each tenant individually for their electrical use.

MORROW: When is that going to be done?

JAQUISH: The study has been -

MORROW: The sooner the better because we are still paying. Page 13 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012

JAQUISH: We are going to retroactively try to bill them as well. It is clear in the contract if they are responsible for their electrical usage however I don’t believe that Hearst ever charged, it doesn’t appear. We are not sure but it doesn’t appear that any of them ever charged for electrical use or ever paid for electrical use. So we will try and recoup those energy usage pricing, the cost to us, and we will try and place meters on each tenants service.

MORROW: Okay, thank you Don.

MONTGOMERY-COREY: Do all of the existing tenants have leases at this point in time?

MURRAY: I think there is one that we still don’t have a lease with and there is a question as to whether or not they will be abandoning their equipment. It is a repeater service and the owner of the repeater service had passed away and we had been dealing with her estate in order to get a new lease and it appears that the estate is unlikely to continue to maintain the business. Otherwise, we have cleaned up the leasing. There was an entity called American Educational Broadcasting that had a verbal lease with Hearst and they have since entered into a new lease. The only issue with them is that they keep sending their rent to our office instead of the Treasurer and I think they have finally - we always forward the check but I think they have finally corrected that in their records. In terms of the existing tenants with leases, my understanding was that some of them were not paying their rent because they were not receiving invoices and I believe that the County was working on that with the Treasurer’s office so that a process could be instituted to start getting invoices to those tenants who were accustomed to getting invoices from Hearst in the past. Lastly with regards to the utilities issue, the tenants which is the majority of them that do have lease terms that require them to pay utilities, they are also corresponding provisions that they will require a waiver if they are not invoiced within a particular period of time so to Don’s point, the county’s contractual ability to recoup retroactively utilities is they fail to pay, exists.

DOUGLAS: Can I ask a question - why wouldn’t Hearst have charged them or did they charge them? Are you saying they did? Why wouldn’t they have charged them for using their antenna?

MURRAY: I don’t know if they did or not. What I do know is that they did not have the mechanisms in place to monitor what the usage was and bill it back. Perhaps they were doing it based on a hand shake. Their situation when we went back and did our due diligence in connection with the purchase, there were some tenants up there such as American Educational Broadcasting that had an email. They were paying rent but it was pursuant to an email and not pursuant to a lease agreement. So that was a challenge to clean it up and we did work on that to get the job done.

DOUGLAS: Have we made them aware at this point that we plan on billing them retroactively and so they are aware that they are going to be charged to be utilizing

MURRAY: I did not perform that task.

JAQUISH: I believe that we sent one. I asked that one be sent but I will check on that.

DOUGLAS: I think that is what we need to do is make them aware that look, not only are we going to charge you retroactively but we are going to have a current agreement that Dan or whoever can Page 14 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 work on to say this is what we are expecting. They can’t plan to use it for free.

PALMER: A lot of these leases are due for renewals and as they get renewed then Dan can look at them coming up.

DOUGLAS: Okay.

JAQUISH: All three of us - Dan, Dan and I have all been working on this issue.

DOUGLAS: I don’t mean to sit here and - I know you have been working extensively on it. I just - if we are providing a service as Jerry said, I would like to get some revenue to offset the cost to the taxpayers that are ultimately fronting the bill for this project besides the grant money that we have been getting and continue to hopefully get - right Mike?

MORROW: As long as we are speaking about leases and I should have brought this up way back at Belfry Mountain. You said that the ones that are currently on the old tower are going to be coming onto our new tower. There is one on the old tower and Don, you know who I am talking about, that has never paid anything. Is he going to come on to our new tower?

JAQUISH: We have been negotiating and Jacqui has been speaking with that person. I am not sure where we are at with it right now?

MURRAY: We did include that party in the APA application and had him sign off on the APA application in furtherance of not making any existing user non-operational. We did discuss the need to memorialize the use of the replacement tower via a lease and in response we learned that the County had been using an access easement to an existing site on Palmer Hill in exchange for that parties use of -

MORROW: Funny that automatically came up now after how many years? I have been here 19 years and that finally came up.

PALMER: That was a hand shake agreement too.

MURRAY: And so to fully answer your question, nothing has been memorialized in writing with that individual yet because we were working through the Palmer Hill issue. There is a third party in addition to that party that has an interest in Palmer Hill that we had to work through.

MORROW: Okay, thank you.

MONTGOMERY-COREY: A follow up question on that particular situation, do we have proof that the easement on Palmer Hill is actually something that this party has?

MURRAY: We did review the title to that site and it does appear that, it doesn’t only appear, there is a permanent easement that that party acquired from the underlying landowner over that land. I can’t recall the underlying landowners name off the top of my head - I think it is Nolan. There is also an issue with the owner of the pole there and in the big picture, whether the County actually needs to use Palmer Hill in the long term future? Maybe Don and Mike can address this but my Page 15 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 understanding is that that site may not be needed by Essex County for the long term and so that will also play a part into whether or not it is fair to exchange it for the easement owners use of Belfry. We are somewhat letting that play out, get through the permit process and then conclude that.

MONTGOMERY-COREY: Okay, thank you.

MORROW: The other thing that I was thinking of when I heard that, that he was letting us use his lease over to Palmer Hill - does he have the right to do that because sometimes leases are written out for the person or the entity but not for anybody else?

MURRAY: We did look at that and we did look at the survey mapping. He had acquired, there is an old fire tower up there which is a stone’s throw from the pole that we are on that is owned by Frontier Communications. There is no access. The access easement that Frontier has which was the party that we have a lease for the pole on, to be on the pole, they only had a utility easement and not a right of access to the site so that presented an access issue. That was a legitimate issue that was raised, the problem is nothing was ever put in writing back when that agreement was made.

MORROW: That is what I was wondering. We have a right-of-way to a dam in Auger Lake but it is only for us. We can’t say we are going to give that easement to somebody else and let them go across it.

MURRAY: Right. He has an easement that is assignable and there is currently carriers including Verizon Wireless that is up on his fire tower so that is a well beaten path.

LEPAGE: Jerry, to add on to the question, a follow up regarding Terry Mountain metering for the tenants. We just received a draft design from Techtonic and we provided comments on it so they are in the process of revising it and including those sub-meters in the circuit paths. I imagine that we will have a design complete, if not by the end of this month by early November. It is interior work and we will probably have a permit in December but I think the interior work for existing electrical work can be done so the meters could be put in even before the end of the year. Okay, so you see Terry Mountain there in the center - we talked about that. We will head in a south/southwesterly direction to the infamous - can anybody guess which site this is? This site is probably the easiest communication site that Federal Engineering has ever seen been put in and we have worked all across the whole country. This is just a walk in the park. But anyway, we have a number of issues to talk about here at Little Whiteface. This is a key site for the County, all three services of land/mobile radio, microwave and paging are going to be hosted at this site. There will be a 6' dish housed in and enclosed in the cupola so that it won’t be visible. It will point back to Terry Mountain and I will open it up to Dave Whitford to describe a little bit more as far as a high level overview of the design process and the challenges encountered and also the recent bidding process and of course the subsequent award and then discussions regarding actual construction and transporting of materials and so forth.

WHITFORD: Thanks Travis. The initial concept for Whiteface was to build an addition on the existing ski patrol building. As you know there is a ski patrol building there now and so the concept was to build an addition for the County equipment and build a clock tower or cupola to house the Page 16 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 antennas because there is great emphasis on Whiteface being a public site and to hide everything as much as possible. Early in the design process we determined the existing building doesn’t meet any codes, it probably was put up in the 50's, it is a typical metal Butler building and the decision was made very early in the process to completely replace the building to house the communication equipment replace the ski patrol room and then a small room for the generator and the HVAC equipment; again with what I call a clock tower or cupola so that we can hide all the dishes and antennas as much as possible including the generator - everything is hidden inside the structure with the exception of the transformer for the power. So that is the scope of work in a nutshell. It was bid this summer, late summer with the concept in mind of maybe getting started on it and actually building it this year because we do have to build around the seasons of course and we do have to build around Whiteface Mountain’s resort schedule. Unfortunately with the permitting that is not possible but we do have low bidders and I believe the County has awarded those contracts but they have not been given a notice to proceed. That is where we stand. They will start in the spring and get that built next spring and early summer.

LEPAGE: To give you a visual depiction of what Dave is speaking about. You can see that the arrow here on the lower right hand corner of the screen is the microwave dish that I was speaking about that is enclosed within that cupola and it is a general sketch of how the structure will look. At this point we will pause a second - any questions, comments, concerns that we would like to discuss about Little Whiteface today?

PALMER: We just want to be able to start in the spring ultimately.

MURRAY: I would like to add a couple of points about Little Whiteface. Little Whiteface is a unique site in that it is on lands under DEC’s jurisdiction over which ORDA has control. The lands are subject to a unit management plan and because of the scale of the proposal an amendment to the unit management plan was required. We commenced the process of including the county’s project as an action among four other actions that ORDA was undertaking in their proposed amendment of their existing unit management plan. We had submitted that to ORDA and ORDA in turn submitted it to DEC and DEC had provided back a few months ago some comments, in particular a request for a detailed visual analysis including cross sections of the visibility of the Little Whiteface site. I did speak with Bob Hammond and perhaps you want to elaborate on it, but I did speak with Bob Hammond regarding this site and the status of the UMP amendment and Bob is the Building Construction Manager for ORDA and he has been actively working on replying to DEC’s request for information in furtherance of completing the UMP amendment process. My understanding is that to make the process somewhat more streamlined, ORDA actually withdrew one of the action items to expedite and advance the ball. But that process has been ongoing for quite some time. I believe that we can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel since DEC did review and get comments to us and they are being addressed. It took quite a while to get those comments in the first instance. In terms of permitting, we currently have an application pending with the APA. I don’t know if you want me to get into the permitting side and timing yet - it might be a good time to do so for everybody? But, we first approached the APA back in February of 2010. We had an informal meeting with staff in order to disclose to them what the plans were in particular the concept of having a shared system and the environmental efficiency’s of doing so, in particular using a single Page 17 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 microwave dish to serve three parties and so in turn those three parties didn’t have to use three spaces of vertical real estate thereby leaving co-location opportunities available for third parties who might otherwise have to install a new tower in the Park. The APA saw the efficiency of that sharing arrangement and they have been very accommodating in working with us in developing an application process. They first provided us with a letter in furtherance of giving us guidance as to how they would like to treat this relatively large scale project that involves so many sites and so many different areas of the park and each site is different - some are co-locations, some are tower replacements, one is a new structure albeit it is only 35' tall and thereafter our job was to go out and develop the materials that the APA as a standard requires for any applicant for communication infrastructure in the park. The APA has standard forms for communication infrastructure and all that they required was that we provide what any other applicant needed to provide. What took time was getting the plans for the engineering design at each site mailed down and throughout the process there were changes here and there, revisions had to be made to the plans because an antenna heigh would change or because an antenna type would change because during vendor visits the vendors would discover that the generator location was not feasible given that there was a guy wire in the way or an overhead utilities - those were the types of issues that we were confronted with during the design phase and developing the civil plans that could ultimately be submitted to the APA. With that said, the APA was amenable to us submitting partial application materials along the way. In an informal fashion getting comments back to us so that we could complete each site by site as quickly as possible. We started that process with them when we received our first batch of plans, they were for the co-location sites. On January 26, 2012 was our first filing with the APA and at that time we filed for the first three co-location sites which were Angier Hill, Blue Mountain and the Public Safety building. The APA got us back comments in two weeks. We had an opportunity to reply to the comments and get those application materials complete. We continued with the next batch of the three co-location sites and then the next batch of state land sites and then the next batch of the tower replacement sites and ultimately the Belfry tower replacement site. As of October 15th, we replied to all comments that have been forwarded to us by the APA formally. The 15 day period within which the APA shall deem the application complete has commenced running and in the interim the APA is waiting awaiting NYS Police SEQRA materials which are required by regulations to be provided. As I mentioned earlier, I spoke to State Police this morning because we have been consulting about those materials and I expect those will be filed within a matter of a few business days. Once the application is deemed complete which I expect to happen within the next couple of weeks, possibly as soon as next week, then the APA by statute has to open a formal public comment period. That public comment period could be anywhere from three weeks to 30 days, it just has to be open for a reasonable period of time. Assuming that the public comment period comes to a close without any substantive issues that would need to be addressed, the next step is for the application to be put on the APA Board’s next regularly scheduled meeting which would be the second Thursday and Friday in December. Assuming that everything goes smoothly and that our application is not only complete but acceptable to the APA, the APA at that meeting has the authority to issue an order authorizing the entire project as a whole and then staff would likely be delegated the authority to issue permits immediately thereafter which would result in the permitting process coming to a close. The one thing that I want to mention and the reason that I got into this juncture with Little Whiteface is that we can’t predict whether or not DEC will conclude the UMP amendment on the same track as the APA review process. What we do note though is that the Little Whiteface site Page 18 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 is a spur, it is not part of the shared microwave ring and so there is a basis for having it be off track and having the APA go forward with their decision even though DEC hasn’t concluded the UMP amendment process. In a nutshell, that is where we stand in the permitting process. We, in my opinion, are very, very close to the end given that we have finally completed the application materials and all responses to questions by the APA for every site, all 16 sites that are within their jurisdiction. The 17th site of course is in Vermont and we had procured permits for that site several months ago from the Vermont Public Service Board.

DOUGLAS: At this point Jacqui and I stepped out - when we are talking about the DEC. We have provided them everything that they have asked for at this point?

MURRAY: Yes.

DOUGLAS: Okay. I have had numerous conversations with Bob Stegemann, the Region 5 Director, and I also plan on - a few of us this weekend are traveling to Albany and Commissioner Martens will be there and I am going to speak to him directly about this issue - I have been assured by the DEC that we will have approval to break ground in the spring. Every time I have talked to them they said they will not be the ones that will stand in our way. I know we have the Bicknell Thrush, the new Essex County Bird as we call it, that is in the way a little bit but we are working around that and they are willing to work with us on that. I honestly think that the DEC is not going to be standing in our way when it comes to try and break ground in the spring. Please keep us aware of where you are at with this because if they become a stumbling block we need to be made aware of that and this weekend when we are down in Albany we certainly will speak to Commissioner Martens about it to make sure that he is on the same page as we are as we move forward.

MURRAY: On that note I should mention that we had proposed a memorandum of understanding for use of the Gore site and the Little Whiteface site. We have reviewed and negotiated those memorandum of understanding with Scott Abrahamson who is Counsel in the Region 5 DEC office. We reached terms several months ago and are awaiting the execution of those two agreements so if that could be on your radar screen that would be terrific. I know that they have made their way to Main Office for final approval and signature.

DOUGLAS: Can you do me a favor, can you send me an email before this weekend and share it with Don and the other players here so that we are all on the same page. Send that with me so I can forward that on to Joe and to Bob before we get down there so that we are not blind siding them and then they know that we are all on the same page and all reaching for the same goal. They tell me that they want to work with us and I believe them, they have been good on other things, but I just want to make sure that we are all on the same page and keeping on track with what we have already discussed with them. Thank you.

MURRAY: The other item is, as you mentioned, the bird.

DOUGLAS: The wonderful bird.

MURRAY: The Bicknell Thrush. In the APA’s last information request they asked how we were Page 19 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 going to address and mitigate any potential for impact to the Bicknell Thrush at the four sites where we are affected by the DEC guidelines to mitigate impact to the Bicknell Thrush, namely Blue Mountain, Gore Mountain, Little Whiteface and Mount Morris - those being the four sites that are over 2800 feet in elevation. Originally they asked us for a description of our construction activities at each site and how we would perform those activities in a way that could mitigate the impact to the Bicknell Thrush. Obviously there are a lot of different ways that you can perform construction activities and there is also a time frame within which certain activities are suppose to be limited if not prohibited, specifically May 1st to August 1st. After having several discussions with the APA to add some definition to their request we reached terms with them as to conditions that would dictate the scope of construction activities that would be permissible but also a means by which to perform construction activities during the May 1st to August 1st window, even ones that they would otherwise deem prohibitive by condition on the permit and the means by which to do so is to engage a party with expertise regarding the species and its habitat and to ask that party to basically authorize activities which would have otherwise been prohibited. We did identify a biologist that works at DEC Region 5 and we have been working with NYS Police to pre-emptively engage that individual given that they are sister agency’s to be available to perform on-site monitoring if necessary to perform construction within that window. What we are anticipating is the scenario where for example at Mount Morris the Bicknell Thrust is unlikely to be at that site being the type of vegetation at that site. The APA is going to afford us the ability to hire independent third parties to make that determination to say you are okay to construct there because you are right, there aren’t any Spruce trees. Similarly we could have a late spring where that arbitrary May 1st deadline is really May 15th or May 30th and again that is an opportunity where we could potentially perform prohibitive construction activities because somebody did an on-site field visit and determined that there wouldn’t be a potential for impact.

DOUGLAS: It is unfortunate that our construction season around here is the same time as their mating season and seriously it is a problem. How much of an impact would construction be on and I haven’t been there so I don’t know, but how many nests are we talking about and how bad is the impact on these birds? Can we entice these birds to stay in the Caribbean a couple of months longer? Aaron, you are the one up there feeding them with open arms?

KELLETT: They estimate about 24 birds on Whiteface and about 100,000 in existence. We just have to follow their procedures. We have been dealing with it for years. There is a lady named Leslie that works for the Adirondack Wildlife Board and she knows a lot.

JAQUISH: You are saying they have actually found 24 birds?

KELLETT: No they haven’t, that is an estimate.

JAQUISH: Have you seen a bird yourself?

KELLETT: Only pictures.

JAQUISH: I have been up there several times and I have not seen any bird up there.

DOUGLAS: They hang out for seven months in the Caribbean according to the most recent Page 20 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 articles, then they fly back here to the Adirondacks - they have it made.

KELLETT: For us too they have found that they like the habitat that a ski trail creates.

PALMER: In that particular area where we are actually doing construction it is pretty much all ledge, does that typically occur with these birds? I mean do they nest on ledge?

KELLETT: No, they nest on the edge of the trails, they like the feathered edges of the trail as the species of tree grows up down in the smaller growth areas where they supposedly hang out.

MURRAY: They seem to be particularly concerned with noise that would disturb them and so in staging for construction during the nesting season the concern appears to be with disturbing them via with noise, motorized vehicles, pneumatic tools, generators.

MARNELL: That building being built up there is a beautiful design but what kind of security fence are you going to have? You can’t put a chain link around that.

MURRAY: That is going to be an operational building where the ski patrol will use -

MARNELL: Oh, it will?

MURRAY: Yes, it will be shared with the ski patrol.

MARNELL: I was thinking if it was a little bigger it would be a good honeymoon suite to bring in revenue.

KELLETT: We have been trying to do that for years as well.

LEPAGE: In addition to the building itself, of course you can see and some of you might be wondering what all these arrows and things are, the AGL by the way is above ground level and if you weren’t aware a number of communications equipment will be put into this cupola - the dish and the of course paging and LMR antennas. You can see proposed paging and then of course the little pizza box dish is about 2' in diameter that will serve the State Police’s link off Little Whiteface ski patrol building up to Whiteface summit itself and that is what we will take a look at next quickly unless there are more questions regarding Little Whiteface. As I just mentioned, the State Police have a spur off the spur if you will up to Whiteface summit just for their microwave services. Looking back into the network, leaving Whiteface and going back to Terry Mountain, as I mentioned earlier there is a NYSEG spur off Terry Mountain and that spur is to Plattsburgh, the NYSEG site which currently has a 70' wind pole for NYSEG’s land/mobile radio service and as part of this project NYSEG will be purchasing and installing a new 100' tower again at their cost, it doesn’t have to do with the county’s particular interest. Also on the tower will be a 10' dish that will go back to Terry Mountain. So that wraps up a site by site walk through. Essentially the entire network looking from the Plattsburgh spur back at Terry Mountain, a key site in the network. The closing credits here if you will - a look at Wells Hill, Belfry, the PSB and back into the core of the network. So one of the things that I like to go back to is what I started with as far as do you have a better understanding of what the project is, what the complexities are and how we have been Page 21 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 dealing with those challenges? Just a question - has this helped today?

MORROW: Certainly it has.

LEPAGE: What I would also like to do is open up for general questions and comments not only regarding the microwave but the overall project in general?

MORROW: I think it was very good today. I am glad that Randy asked for this meeting today. I think it brought a lot of things to light. I just wish there were more Supervisors that showed up. I really hope that they read the minutes and I really want the press to get out there that this little bird could cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars and delay the project, no fault of us. None at all. It is an awful thing how they put birds and everything else in front of public safety.

DOUGLAS: Jerry you make a good point. During Irene the Governor was here and saw first hand when we were with him that communication was very, very poor and his staff was saying you guys have to get this fixed. I said we need your help to get this fixed. Unfortunately this bird has stood in the way here a little bit and we need to move forward. I think the DEC is on the same page with us and we will continue to work with them but you are right on - public safety has to come first.

MORROW: Yes and having said that too about public safety first - I am very glad to hear Jacqui say that the APA has been very helpful working with communications because probably ten years ago, maybe twelve years ago I was up at full board meeting as Public Safety chair when we were starting the Jail and the Public Safety building. I can remember some of those Commissioner’s say that it wasn’t important. That communications and cell phone access or cell phone coverage in the Adirondacks was a matter of recreational and not public safety. I have worked with the APA in my own Town and I have to give them credit, they have come a long way since ten or twelve years ago. I am glad to hear that, they are very helpful. Remind the DEC that the APA isn’t holding us up, they are.

DOUGLAS: I agree with you Jerry. I think that there has been a turn around with the APA and under the leadership of the Governor and the past Governor before that saying that you have to work with local government to make these projects work for public safety and I think that the leadership in the DEC, we have a very good rapport with Commissioner Martens, I think he is on board with us and I think the new direction at the APA has been very helpful. I think we are on the right approach. I think it use to be a war of beating each other up in public meetings like you said and I think it was the idea that cell phones were a luxury back then and for recreation and now we are seeing how important it was especially if we didn’t learn anything from Irene, how important these things are. I hate them but how important they are.

MORROW: I remember that day - I remember it just as well as I am sitting here. I know that George Canon was there too and after I got done giving a speech to the APA board, it was very frustrating listening to their comments, and I went back and sat down and George Canon said - Jerry, you might as well save your breathe. But now, they have turned around a long ways. I commend them for that.

PALMER: I will add and I think Jacqui is maybe kinder than I am. There has been an awful lot of expense added to this project based upon requirements for permits. We have been counting trees Page 22 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 and balloons. There is a tremendous amount of stuff that has added to the cost of this project. I understand that they need to treat us the same, I guess to some extent of anybody else applying for a permit, but we are a public agency and we are talking about public safety. It has cost us a considerable amount of money.

JAQUISH: I would just like to add - this project and the consortium that we are forming to integrate this microwave loop into other microwave systems that are being built out, this project has put us in a really good position to receive more funding from the state. We do have Mike Mascarenas - what did we put in for - $3.7?

MASCARENAS: Yes, $3.75 million in the current application.

JAQUISH: We received $2 million from the previous inter-operability grant so it is really fortuitous that we are where we are now and I believe there are principally five other regions that are being formed similar to ours, that form consortiums. In the past couple of weeks we have had two more counties wish to join our consortium which will enable them to apply for funding as well but it really places us in a good position. I am really glad that we are where we are right now. Had we not started this project we would have been left out in the cold completely from the rest of the state because what really is being done is the Statewide Wireless Network that failed, well this is another way that we are doing this, with the cooperation of all the counties involved this time. So I think it puts us in a very good position for us to be in.

MORROW: When we talk about cost and Dan talks about costs and you are too - we started out with a $10 million dollar project - where are we now and what are we going to get for grants? Mike talked about $2 million that we received and we are applying for another $3.75. What is the total cost of this project? We started off at $10 - what is it going to be and what are we going to get for grants?

PALMER: Travis, I don’t think you need to go through the whole thing but let’s do an overview of where we are and what we have taken in and where the County currently stands.

DOUGLAS: Before he gets to that I would like to say that all indications are that this coming weekend, they have asked us to attend, we are sending a group of representatives to the Governor’s Inaugural Conference on Emergency Preparedness for the State of New York this weekend and there are some of us in this room that are going. We are very hopeful that they are going to announce the radio awards for grant funding and hopefully we are included in that one. We have stressed and we done everything we can as a group to lobby for more funding and hopefully there is some sort of announcement that we receive some of this funding that we have put in for. If not, Mike has done a tremendous job of putting in for them, keeping on track of what is out there and applying for it on our behalf. But, hopefully we get good news this weekend.

MASCARENAS: Can I just say too that when we prepare these applications they ask for return on investment. Currently we have a nine County consortium, we upped it from five the first year. I just want to make it clear that by having this consortium you are saving your taxpayers locally a tremendous amount of money. We don’t have to build out own backup centers. We don’t have to provide redundancy within our own systems. Those are going to be provided by our consortium member and through technology’s that we are using in this system. It is estimated that Year Five Page 23 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 by having this consortium we are going to save as a whole regional consortium probably $53 million dollars in those costs - not having to build those back up centers in every single jurisdiction and we are going to be able to provide public safety better.

LEPAGE: To add to your point Mike, the State Police will be serving as network administrators for the microwave network so the County doesn’t bear that cost.

JAQUISH: Just for edification, in the past 911 centers - every County usually had a duplicate center located in another location within their County thus you had to build actually two centers and the way we are doing this now is actually one County is backing up the other and that is where a big cost savings is seen.

LEPAGE: I have seen recently even the county’s remaining the state’s that are not part of consortium have recently joined into other consortiums. So the consortiums are growing and growing and growing just because that is where the money flows and that is what makes the most sense. To talk about some costs, essentially this is again to be very clear, this does not reflect revenues and so forth. This does not include the grant funding that Mike is speaking about - this is cost only. I actually updated these numbers based upon the recent bids for the county’s civil work so total initial cost is this number here - about $15,652,000. If you want to look at a break down of that, essentially most of that is the equipment that you can see, 28% of that is the microwave radio network, the LMR and the paging systems; 22% of that is site upgrades, the civil work that needs to be done. I won’t read through all of them but expenditures to date is really what we have been talking about, the activities and supporting the activities that have been doing on to get the project to where it is now- those are the expenditures to date and there is some contingency built into this. This gives you the break down and it also gives you a projected cost of ownership for ten years and you can see that we don’t know, one cost that the County will have to be responsible for is the land/mobile radio, the Motorola software maintenance which we have not received a firm quote on yet so that is a TBD but other than that your initial system costs again is projected to be $15.6. Estimated ten year costs is approximately $20 million dollars. We actually put this together in its original form back before many of the actual bids were in so a lot of it use to be estimates so now it has been refined to include the most recent numbers for the work but initially to put this together we went back through and included all the contracts, about 27 different contracts with firms that the County has with particular organizations. In order to estimate the civil work effort we put together a number of models to deal with everything with time, materials and labor for the projected civil work by site so that is how we really got up to these numbers. As I mentioned, the only number that is an estimate now in this is the electrical upgrades which we just had a rough order of magnitude come in and also we don’t have the final costs for Belfry Mountain, the County needs to buy a new tower there. We have the shelter costs which are in here so the only outstanding cost item for Belfry Mountain is the tower and the generator. The civil work have already come in, we have that number for that. Are there any questions that I can answer regarding costs?

PALMER: Jacqui, how much was the State Police contributing?

MURRAY: The State Police has a not to exceed to contribute $1.8 million. Their purchase of the microwave equipment I believe off the top of my head is about $1.5 million and then they have Page 24 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 some other.

PALMER: Travis, is that $1.5 million in this estimate for the State Police?

LEPAGE: No, this is cost only.

PALMER: Okay, so we can subtract the $1.8. What about NYSEG, how much was that?

MURRAY: About $600,000. So about $2.4 million is being contributed by State Police and NYSEG to the extent that when I say $1.8 million because there is some equipment that is proprietary that basically when we did the shared microwave agreement we allocated. When you saw spur sites that the County gets no benefit out of, the County pays nothing for those. The cost of supporting that site and improving it is allocated in the agreement because when State Police agreed to buy all the microwave agreement some of it was for County spurs too so they were paying for equipment that was exclusively to be used by the County; that said, the way that the sharing agreement works is that State Police is contributing more than what would be allocated to them just for their shared use of the system, shared use of band width and their spurs by virtue of purchasing all the microwave equipment for the project. To the extent that that number exceeds what they would have had to pay if they were just paying cash and not purchasing all the equipment, they will get an offset for their share of recurring costs until that amount gets depleted and thereafter they will have to pay for the systems on-going cost after their amount of over-payment is depleted. Similarly NYSEG will be sharing in the on-going cost of the system going forward as well so there is some defrayal of those on-going future costs as well as the current equipment costs that are in those numbers.

PALMER: So with the NYS Police and NYSEG we are down to $13 million. Mike, how much was the first grant you got?

MASCARENAS: The first one we got from Homeland Security was for $2 million dollars exactly. The great majority of that was to provide mobile radios to the Towns.

PALMER: That is in this figure.

LEPAGE: Yes, cost of the mobiles are in here.

MASCARENAS: $1.1 million dollars of those mobiles were included in that. Now the remainder of those mobiles we are going to pay for out of the $580,000 grant that we had gotten four or five years ago, that also includes the frequency’s so that is another $2.6 million. The Motorola Moto Bridge which is going to provide the connectivity, the log in equipment, that is what was included in the $2 million. Now in this $4 million and I know we are kind of jumping ahead but it is going to come up rather quickly, what we have asked for is a build out of the LMR on six sites - Angier, Belfry, Gore, Mount Defiance, Pisgah, Little Whiteface. We have also asked for shelters. We have asked for the shelter to be built on Whiteface as well and a free standing tower, generators, installed microwave and installed towers. So that is a crucial piece and would definitely put you exactly where you need to be. Page 25 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012

PALMER: Without that grant, without that grant that we haven’t been told yes or no on, we are at $10.6. So we are at $10.6 right now as County costs without that grant. If in fact we get that grant we are lower.

MASCARENAS: Which is lower than what you originally anticipated.

DOUGLAS: And we won’t give up. If we are not successful on this one there are other rounds of funding that we will continue to lobby for through our legislative trips. Don, I know we are talking costs right now but - I know it was a huge issue with the fire departments and the highway departments - what is the plan on the radios and I am sorry to get away from the costs here but what is the plan on the radios for all the fire departments and the highway departments. Is there a certain amount that you are planning on giving to each and how does that work with switching over frequency’s? I know it was a problem with a couple of fire departments that did some other things, I am no expert on frequency’s, I had a walkie-talkie when I was a kid and that is it. So I don’t understand and if you could elaborate a little bit it would help.

JAQUISH: Well Mike can help me out with this but basically he did a resource inventory of each fire department’s apparatus and this includes ambulance, police and fire. We came up with the number of apparatus plus three which means the number of apparatus - each one will be provided with a mobile and the Chief and his two Assistants will be provided with a mobile. After that the department will be responsible for any additional radios. I just want to say that when Clinton County built their system out the departments had to purchase the radios so the work that Mike and Mike did on the grant to get the mobiles purchases was exemplary. So we are doing our best. We are trying to ensure that the primary apparatus that is used by each municipality has the radios. In saying that, the low band system we are going to parallel so there will be a transition period switching to the high band and staying on low band and they will have the capability of both systems for a while. There are other departments that are going to require new pagers because we are going definitely low band paging throughout the County. There is a transition plan and each plan will be different for each department; however, each department has some responsibility to contribute toward this system and one of those is to purchase their pagers. We did not put pagers into this project. I know that Ticonderoga has already purchased some used ones of which they bought quite inexpensively from I think a department in Warren County. So there are pagers out there for those who need to convert. Again, we are going to try and make sure that the primary vehicles - police, fire, EMS are equipped with the radios and these radios are $3400 apiece so the average department is getting anywhere from six to ten radios. Now as far as install, we are going to have to wait and see where our money falls in line here. If we get the grants then possibly we would pay for the install and if not then the departments will have to do their install at about $400 each.

LEPAGE: I think it was $430,000.

JAQUISH: For all the mobiles.

LEPAGE: I think it was $1.5 million. Page 26 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012

DOUGLAS: So all the districts would have to share the total cost of that, is that what you are saying?

JAQUISH: No, we purchased the radios, that is already done with. So we have the radios and what we have done is we have distributed these radios.

DOUGLAS: Right, but the cost to install is the $430,000? So the $430,000 would have to be shared?

JAQUISH: Overall, the whole County.

DOUGLAS: Would have to share with all those fire districts and ambulance districts?

JAQUISH: Yes. But hopefully we can help there but if we do the install we are going to have to go out to bid to have the installs done and all that business but that is kind of like Phase Two, we are trying to build the infrastructure, the backbone first.

DOUGLAS: I agree.

JAQUISH: And then we will go with what we can do afterwards.

DOUGLAS: I think the County is being more than fair. I mean I am sure there are some concerns out there but I think the County is being more than fair.

PALMER: For the record, I just want to - we had a resolution saying we could expend up to $10 million for this radio project so like I said, right now it looks like our costs are going to come in around $10.6; the way we stand right now if we get no more grants at all. So at that point the board has to either decide they are going to exceed the bond of the $10 million or you have to look at some options and one of the options that is out there and Jacqui knows is – Terry Mountain is very salable. We could turn around and sell Terry Mountain. There are independent company’s out there that would purchase Terry Mountain and it has a certain amount of value so you could do that and certainly get yourself below the $10 million at that point and worse case scenario; however you do lose the $100,000 a year in revenue that you would be taking by owning the site. On the other hand you are also giving up all the maintenance issues that are associated with keeping Terry Mountain should you decide to do that. If we in fact get this grant which would bring our costs down considerably, that is at the point where this board can decide how much additional funds you want to put into the local departments to make them whole. If in fact it is grant money then there probably is some argument for doing that and you could probably keep the fire departments from having to raise additional funds on the levy for some of those installs and the pagers and things like that. But worse case scenario right now, it looks like we are standing at $10.6 and if you don’t want to exceed the $10.6 we probably could sell Terry Mountain to get below.

DOUGLAS: That includes the highway departments for those radios too or not?

JAQUISH: We did not buy radios for highway, am I right Mike? Page 27 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012

BLAISE: We included one radio for each Highway Superintendent.

JAQUISH: That is correct, right. The Highway Superintendent’s but not for their trucks.

DOUGLAS: I think that is fair.

MARNELL: In Schroon Lake last year they changed all their radios that they were required to go to -

JAQUISH: They narrow banded them?

MARNELL: Yes.

JAQUISH: So these radios are capable of 360 channels so more than likely you could put the highway channels in there.

MARNELL: What ever happens in the future, would Verizon or AT&T, would they ever be able to buy into this system? What I am thinking of is like in Schroon Lake we have a water tower that we rent, cell towers. Right now I have offered that we could sell that for $350,000 or $400,000 but do you think it would ever come about in five or ten years down the road that Verizon or AT&T or any of those cellular company’s would buy into this system?

LEPAGE: By buy in do you mean to the microwave network? They could but however usually the carriers prefer to run on their own systems. So it would really depend on the feasibility of them being able to put in a microwave network for themselves were fibers not available. But it is a possibility.

PALMER: The problem with it is band width. How much band width you have available to share on that network and the Verizon’s and AT&T’s need a lot of band width.

MARNELL: $350,000 looks good right now.

LEPAGE: It is possible. I mean there is a lot of compression type techniques these days that you can really pack a punch as far as getting limited capacity but preferably they are usually on their own networks.

DOUGLAS: So there is a lot of possibilities. We are over what we planned on the $10 million but not by a whole heck of a lot. We are still lobbying for more funding. The possibility of the revenue, I want to get back to the people using our towers and paying their share. I mean we include that revenue down the line to help offset whatever bond we take out to help pay for that.

PALMER: I think the revenue from those sources are more to offset our long term operating costs, our software updates and those kinds of things - that is really what those are going to offset. I just want to go back to the $10 million again. I think for the record it has to be understood that that original $10 million estimate was based upon a nine site system that was not a loop system, that had no partners in it and essentially was a way smaller and less robust system than we are actually building. We have been held to the $10 million dollar standard and I think we are Page 28 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 getting there but really it was not ever anticipated to be the size system it is because that estimate was done four or five years ago.

DOUGLAS: Right.

PALMER: I guess the other thing that I would ask for the Supervisors that are here, I think that both Don and I and Dan kind of get questions fired at us at public safety meetings or committee meetings. I don’t think that the board overall understands how complex this system actually is. I have been here 20 years and I think this might be the most complex project the County has ever put together. I know we had the Jail and that was a big project but all the moving parts to this and all the permits and all the things that go with this and all the private leases is just - it is really a complicated and difficult project and we sometimes can’t fire off answers quite as fast as we should.

DOUGLAS: That is a good point, absolutely.

MORROW: To let you know, I took a lot of notes and I will be ready for the 5th.

DOUGLAS: A couple of things though before we end up closing this thing, who is going to write the letter stating the retro-active costs to the people that are using our towers? When can we anticipate that happening? I want to leave out of here when we go into November 5th and somebody is going to shoot off, some board member is going to shoot off saying we aren’t getting paid for -. I just want to have a game plan in place. If it is me that is suppose to write the letter, or Dan or you or Jacqui or Don?

JAQUISH: Dan and I are working on that and either Dan can do it or I can do it.

DOUGLAS: I would just like to get that - it is easy for me to say if you guys are doing it but I would like to have that in place. People are going to ask why aren’t we getting the revenue and if we can have something in place it would be most helpful.

JAQUISH: I think they fully expect it.

PALMER: All of them signed a lease that says that. A little bit, some of these fringe things that are hanging out there and I will call them fringe things - we haven’t been overly aggressive about pursuing them because the last thing we really need to do is get into a fight with somebody and have some Judge say well let’s put a hold to this whole project.

DOUGLAS: I understand.

PALMER: Put a hold on the whole project while you sort this out. So if it hasn’t had a huge impact to us we have kind of let it ride because we really want to get the permits locked down and the construction schedule locked down and then I think we will go back and address those smaller items.

JAQUISH: I will just tell you that it has taken a tremendous amount of extra time on my offices part, Dan’s and Mike. We have really been doing double duty here for a couple of years. Page 29 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012

MORROW: Two things that brings up, two things. One, I think the letter should always come fro the County Attorney.

MANNING: I can speak to that. Don asked me to meet with him about six weeks ago probably and I have all the information but I just haven’t had the time to get it out. So if there is any blame.

DOUGLAS: I am not blaming anybody.

MORROW: I am not either.

MANNING: I can do the letter.

MORROW: I am not blaming anybody, I am just saying that it should come from the attorney. I think letters have more impact from attorney’s. I agree, we don’t want to lose anybody that we are going to have in the future either for good revenue.

MANNING: I have the information and will get that out.

MORROW: Something has been bothering me for a long time and I haven’t said it but I think this is the opportune time to say it. We just heard our County Manager say that this project is way more than the public safety and Jail, yet that guy right across the way from me has been working his rear off on this and extra hours and everything else I would be willing to bet, on a bigger project and hasn’t gotten a penny more on his salary; as a matter of fact didn’t get any raise for the last two years. So has Mike, both of them. Yet we gave a department head $5000 to be the Clerk of the Works for the Jail project and we just heard that this is a way bigger project. I mean I am not one to throw money away but you have to give credit where credit is due. We might want to look at the budget and do something for him and Mike. I am just throwing that out there as food for thought. I also want to say - he didn’t put me up to it either.

LEPAGE: I deal with Mike and Don on a daily basis and in addition to the radio project they are doing so many other things so I try to only contact them when really necessary and send them emails and call them when really, really needed. You can see just the scope of the project, the number of sites, the number of parties and firms and vendors and so forth involved - I would say if you did a comparison between your Jail project and this project you probably have four or five times more players involved with this project. Somebody has to, from the County, has to keep oversight over that and keep the wheels turning so Don and Mike do a nice job with that. To wrap things up here today I just wanted to thank you all for joining us this morning. It looks like and sounds like the presentation was beneficial for everyone involved and perhaps we should do this on a more regular basis, maybe in the spring when we get ready to start the build out to give everyone a quick update on where we are, what are the issues at that point in time and what the proposed draw out looks like just so everyone has that fresh in their minds and they have the latest information. So thank you everyone.

DOUGLAS: Before we close, I know Jerry has closing words as he is the Chairman of this and I am not, but I want to revisit Little Whiteface and the confusion that came about and Aaron, I am not trying to put you on the spot but I guess I am. About how we could have cut costs by not using the helicopter, by having ORDA do some of the work and those sort of things. How can we clear Page 30 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 that out or is it a mute point at this point and just ask you to clear that up for us. I wasn’t aware of any of that and when the emails started going around I think everybody was on a different page. If you could clear that up for us and then I will be quiet for the rest of the day.

KELLETT: I don’t know where the helicopter came about. We had a pre-bid meeting this spring and we met with all the parties involved and the contractors and we basically offered our services to them. We are totally mobile. We can access the site with out existing equipment. We said if you want to do it yourselves this is what you are going to need, we don’t recommend a helicopter as your costs are going to go out of the roof. We are there. We are fully capable of doing everything that the contractor will need us to do. We can get anything they need up there except for the cement truck.

PALMER: There is no helicopter being used on Little Whiteface and in fact I am not sure there is a helicopter being used anywhere. To Dave Whitford’s credit, he had language in the bid documents that said, if you are going to use a helicopter you can’t pay over prevailing wage rate and there was some other language in there that covered us as well. But that was the contractors options. If in fact they were going to exercise that option they were limited in what they could charge us and only $1.00 over the prevailing wage is what they said for the pilot.

WHITFORD: I don’t remember the specific language but a lot of contractors did look at the idea and then abandoned it because it was so expensive and the current GC is not, he is going to rent a truck.

PALMER: Right, he took Whiteface’s suggestion to rent the truck. What he said to me when we spoke to him is that essentially he was going to need it anyway to get his men up and back and forth to the site so the actual delivery - being a contractor I understand that there are going to be times when you just need to be assured that you are going to have the materials on site when you need them and I think in most cases the contractor needs to take that responsibility himself so that he can’t come back to me as the builder of the overall project and say well I didn’t get materials today so therefore you owe me for three men’s work.

WHITFORD: I think the only remaining issue specifically with Little Whiteface is who is going to demolish the old ski patrol building, that has been discussed a couple of times over the past couple of years. I know that Aaron just became General Manager so he probably hasn’t had a chance to address that with the County. There was this other idea they were kicking around to try and save money and get ORDA involved obviously in the project as well - I don’t know if that has been resolved yet or not?

KELLETT: I am not sure. We are open for ideas. Communicate with us and we can let you know. We have ideas on what we can do with it. I don’t think that it will be very much money considering it is made out of tin, it is pretty minimal cost I think in the grand scheme of things up there.

MARNELL: I am glad that I made it up here today because when you think about radio towers you think there is nothing to it, there is a tower here and a tower there. Thank you for your presentation.

MORROW: I am glad that you brought it up about ORDA and the helicopter because that needed Page 31 Radio System Sub-Committee 10/24/2012 to be cleared up. Does anybody else have anything for today? Any questions or comments? Randy, are you sure you don’t have anything else? We are always welcome for questions or comments, we are working on radio communications and that is what we need here is communication because you don’t get anywhere without it. I want to thank everybody - if there are not further questions or comments I want to thank everyone for coming today. I think it was really enlightening. I am so glad that we had this today and I did take notes and everything and I am leaving them right in the drawer and you know me, I am not afraid to speak. Thank you all for coming. I appreciate it.

AS THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME BEFORE THIS RADIO SYSTEM SUB-COMMITTEE, WE ADJOURNED AT 12:08 P.M.

Respectfully submitted,

Deborah Palmer, Clerk Board of Supervisors