At a press conference held on October 26, Chemung County Executive Tom Santulli and Mark Cicora, Office of Fire and Emergency Management Director, joined by local fire department members, unveiled the recently completed Public Safety Radio Communication System. The $8.4M project was completed over a period of four years and will greatly enhance notification and emergency communications for all fire personnel throughout the County.
The project was completed with $6M in Federal and New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services grant funding and includes the addition of six new tower sites and upgrades to existing towers which will provide full communication coverage to all localities in the County. New equipment was also purchased to upgrade the dispatch consoles at the E911 Communications Center. In addition, 569 mobile and portable radios and 852 pagers were purchased to equip the 21 fire departments within the County.
The press conference included a demonstration of the system and a tour of the new Kinner Hill Road tower and equipment.
Said Tom Santulli, “This project has been a major undertaking. It was vital to upgrade our outdated and substandard low-band communication system to this state-of-the-art digital high –band system for the safety of our residents.”
Chemung County Legislator Rodney J. Strange, a strong support of the project since taking office in 2010, is extremely gratified to see it completed. “This new communication system is essential to protecting Chemung County residents by both law enforcement and fire departments,” Strange said. “We need to make sure our Sheriff’s Deputies can communicate in every corner of the county and our firefighters can talk to each other while fighting fires in homes and businesses in all of our communities.” Strange says it was important for him that new pagers and radios were funded as part of the project for our volunteer firefighters. “These communication tools are expensive and anything we can provide to our volunteer firefighters to help them do the job we ask of them was a major concern of mine. I am very happy that they have been provided with these critical devises,” Strange said. “Today Chemung County residents are safer because of this project.”
Said Mark Cicora, “While responding to one of our resident’s call for help, this newly constructed fire radio system will ensure reliable emergency radio communications for all the fire departments in Chemung County. Many locations across the county have traditionally had poor or non-existent radio coverage for our fire personnel with which to communicate with each other and with the 911 center in times of an emergency. I wish to thank Mr. Santulli and the County Legislature for their foresight and providing the necessary resources to complete this enormous project.”