GYMA (Greater Youngstown Monitoring Association)

11/05/2024

https://www.vindy.com/news/local-news/2024/10/council-seeks-radio-solutions-for-responders/

Council seeks radio solutions for responders
MARCS not as inexpensive and easy as officials hoped
Oct 23, 2024

Dan Pompili
Reporter
[email protected]



BOARDMAN — Mahoning County still wants to join a statewide communications system, but it won’t be as easy or inexpensive as officials had hoped.

Law enforcement officials in the Mahoning County Council of Governments — consisting of Austintown, Boardman, and the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office — met Tuesday morning with representatives from Motorola to learn more about the cost and technological feasibility of linking the first responder communication systems with the Multi-Agency Radio Communication System, commonly known as MARCS.

MARCS is a state-sponsored system that allows emergency responders from different agencies to communicate directly through their radios, instead of funneling communications through multiple dispatch centers, which costs time in an emergency.

“It has been the trend in Ohio,” said Sheriff Jerry Greene, chair of the council’s communications committee. “It makes it easy to talk directly to multiple other agencies, and the support and maintenance is superior.”

MARCS would allow local law enforcement, for example, to tie into the MARCS system anywhere in Ohio, easing communications with local and regional agencies in the case of prisoner transfer to and from out-of-county facilities.

Boardman police Chief Todd Werth said the fee to join MARCS is $1.3 million to $1.4 million, but that is not the only cost.

Mahoning County has a software upgrade agreement with Motorola to maintain the existing network, hardware and software that keep emergency communications systems operating for police, fire and road crews.

While the state will take over the maintenance of the towers, the county has to have the proper system in place to support MARCS.

Representatives from Motorola said Mahoning operates on Motorola’s SUA-2 (or “Essential-Plus”) plan. To upgrade to support the MARCS system, the county would have to purchase an SUA-3 (or “Advanced Plus”) plan.

Chief Deputy William Cappabianca said the meeting was necessary because there was some confusion over what the cost will be for Motorola to upgrade from SUA-2 to SUA-3.

Motorola provided an estimate that included software support for radio consoles in the Youngstown and Youngstown State University police departments and Canfield city. While those entities are among the users of Mahoning County’s radio network, Cappabianca said they will have to pay for their own upgrade to MARCS and make any necessary purchases of new equipment.

The county asked for a new estimate from Motorola excluding those three agencies, which the representatives said they can provide within a week.

Cappabianca said the council also may decide to eliminate the console at the Mahoning County Jail and then the county only would be charged based on the equipment at the Boardman and Austintown dispatch centers, which manage communications for 1,800 users across Mahoning County.

“It’s something we’re considering,” he said. “We’ll see if we can get it done without jeopardizing the safety of the deputies inside the jail.”

Another concern the council had is that the usage cost per radio, to be tied into the system, is not as low as they had been led to believe. Werth and Cappabianca said they have told several department chiefs across the county that the cost per radio under MARCS with the new SUA would be about $10. Motorola’s assessment puts it closer to $23.

Werth said they also have concerns about some older radios not being compatible with the new network, and the costs to upgrade others to be compatible, which he said could be as high as $100,000. If they cannot be made compatible, the county or departments will have to buy new radios at their own cost.

Motorola representatives asked the county to send a list of radio serial numbers, so the company’s technicians can determine which ones will work.

The committee scheduled another meeting for Nov. 12.

BOARDMAN — Mahoning County still wants to join a statewide communications system, but it won’t be as easy or inexpensive as officials had hoped. Law enforcement officials in the Mahoning County Council of Governments — consisting of Austintown, Boardman, and the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Off...

11/05/2024

https://www.vindy.com/news/local-news/2024/08/mahoning-county-considers-joining-marcs-statewide-communications-network/

Mahoning County considers joining MARCS statewide communications network
Aug 27, 2024

Russell Brickey
Correspondent



BOARDMAN — Mahoning County is considering a partnership with the Multi-Agency Radio Communication System, a state-sponsored communications system for first responders.

Angela Canepa, deputy director of communications for MARCS, made a presentation Monday morning at the Boardman Township Government Center to the Austintown-Boardman-Canfield Joint Communications District, law enforcement and local officials.

“(MARCS) is a multi-agency radio communications system,” Canepa explained. “It is a state\wide system started more than two decades ago.”

MARCS’s mission is to provide “interoperability to all first responder agencies,” she said, meaning that during a crisis situation, first responders from one agency can talk directly over the radio to first responders from another agency.

Efforts to form a centralized communication system in Ohio began after the Shadyside flood of 1990 and the Lucasville prison riot of 1993. During these crises, first responders were often left in a state of chaos because they were unable to talk directly to one another, Canepa said. Messages among agencies first had to be radioed in from the field to dispatch centers. The dispatchers would then have to relay messages to dispatchers in cooperating agencies who then would have to relay those communications back to their own responders in the field.

These same problems with radio communication dogged first responders during the train derailment in East Palestine in February 2023 and the gang violence at the Canfield Fair in September of 2023.

The MARCS system is designed to alleviate such confusion, Canepa said.

“In one of the most unfortunate ways possible, we learned during the East Palestine derailment how invaluable it is for local first responders to be able to communicate with one another and respond to a mass emergency,” state Rep. Lauren McNally, D-Youngstown, told The Vindicator last year. “This is a smart investment that will keep our residents and our safety forces safe.”

Already, the Ohio State Highway Patrol uses MARCS, and local law enforcement is able to “patch in” to the MARCS system if necessary. The Mahoning County Commissioners Office is in the process of examining the system, as well as alternatives.

“This (discussion) is still completely exploratory,” Boardman police Chief Todd Werth said via email. The county is “looking at all options to include continuing with our current 800 digital system currently in use, not just a possible transition to the state MARCS system,” he wrote. “(The meeting on Monday) was an informational session for the elected officials from Mahoning County, Austintown and Boardman who oversee the current council of governments (COG) for the radio system. No final decision has been made and no vote is scheduled at this time.”

Seventy-three of Ohio’s 88 counties have joined the MARCS system, and four additional counties are in talks with the state to join in the near future. This means that 158,000 individual users and 3,300 agencies are already part of the system, according to Canepa’s presentation.

Counties that join the MARCS system are expected to pay approximately half of the cost of operations, but this would actually translate to savings. The monthly subscription for using an individual radio would drop from $18 to $5 in the MARCS system, according to Werth and Canepa. In addition, the state would take over all maintenance, repair, landscaping and upgrading of the county’s four radio towers if it partnered with MARCS.

Hospitals and private users, such as ambulance services, would pay $25 a month to use MARCS. In all, the state would contribute $2 million to a partnership with Mahoning County, according to Canepa’s presentation.

Mahoning County has 1,700 radios that would need to be reprogrammed at the county’s expense. And in some instances, if radios need to be upgraded to join the network, Mahoning County would have to buy new radios and new computer consoles for their dispatch centers, also at their own expense, Canepa said.

Some in the audience worried that the $5 monthly cost for radio usage would go up over time. “There is no reason to think (the cost) will go up,” Canepa said. “I can’t promise that this stays $5 forever, but I can tell you that the trend (in the cost of radio service) has been down, and it has never gone up when it goes down,” she said.

By the time it is completed, MARCS will be the biggest statewide system in the nation. While the discussion is still ongoing, audience responses to the project were generally positive.

“When you have first responders in the room who want this,” Canepa said, “that says a lot to me.”

BOARDMAN — Mahoning County is considering a partnership with the Multi-Agency Radio Communication System, a state-sponsored communications system for first responders. Angela Canepa, deputy director of communications for MARCS, made a presentation Monday morning at the Boardman Township Government...

06/14/2024

In another first, Austintown dispatch center has taken over answering phone calls and dispatching for Youngstown while the 911 center at City Hall is evacuated. City dispatchers will be joining Austintown in their dispatch center until they can return to their center.

02/13/2024

The State of Ohio has come up with $956,000 to help 28 Valley fire departments upgrade their communication systems.

02/06/2024

We are pleased to announce that we applied for the 2024 Multi-Agency Radio Communications Systems (MARCS) grant & were awarded $33,189.30 to purchase MARCS related radio equipment! This is a non-matching grant & does not cost the Township anything.

Congrats also to our neighboring departments for also being awarded some $ for the same grant:

Salem Fire Dept / Winona Fire Dept / Green Twp. / Hanover Twp. Fire Dept & Damascus Fire Dept.

Chief B. Smith

01/05/2024

**Grant Award**
We are pleased to announce that we have received the 2024 MARCS Grant Award to purchase portable radios and to pay for user fees on the MARCS platform.

01/04/2024

01/04/2024

Great News the district was awarded a nearly $27,000 grant from the fire marshal for additional MARCs Radio’s

01/03/2024

The year 2023 was a busy year for emergency responders, with multiple departments across the area seeing a surge in the number of calls.

12/15/2023

Just a few months after celebrating 100 years of service to the community, the Boardman Township Fire Department is touting the upcoming launch of its very own ambulance service, beginning January …

10/09/2023

I know the club hasn't done much beyond posts here lately, but in the spirit of past club bonfire events, President Ron Novak is announcing a bonfire at his place in Columbiana. He will be providing hot dogs and s'mores. Bring your own chair, and drinks. If you wish to bring a dish, go for it! It starts at 6pm, on October 21, with the 28th as a rain backup date.
Hope to see folks there!

09/10/2023

08/25/2023

Jerry Star passed away at age 81 on Tuesday. He was a valley radio legend and well loved DJ for WHOT and WSRD.

08/25/2023

W8JV

His real name was James Viele but everyone knew him as Jerry Starr.

08/11/2023

https://www.wfmj.com/story/49403627/boardman-and-canfield-fire-departments-consider-potential-merge

Fire and community leaders from Boardman and canfield are aiming to strengthen their emergency response capabilities by considering a potential merge of their fire departments.

06/22/2023

We can't communicate in a major event. Que the overly complicated radio solutions involving pricey digital radios with poor coverage on a system no one else can use, years of planning and testing and after spending millions, still no one can talk on to each other. Sigh.

NTSB derailment hearing update: Fire Chief calls communication a 'Ginourmous' problem

Answering a question about his fire department's ability to communicate with each other, East Palestine Fire Chief Keith Drabick called communications a "Ginormous" problem noting that first responders operate on different frequencies making it hard to communicate with various departments in different counties and states.

Drabick said that on the night of the derailment, there was only one dispatcher on duty being overwhelmed with phone calls for three fire departments and two police departments. "A centralized 911 center would be a good step forward," said Drabick.

02/27/2023

https://www.wfmj.com/story/48452265/toxic-train-derailment-reveals-weakness-in-communication-systems

Youngstown, Ohio's #1 Locally owned, locally connected television news station.

12/28/2022

https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/local-fire-departments-awarded-marcs-grant/

The Ohio Department of Commerce Division of State Fire Marshal announced the recipients of the 2023 MARCS grant, featuring recipients in Columbiana, Lawrence, Mahoning, Mercer and Trumbull county.…