Officials meet about purchase of radio

By Ashley Luthern | October 28, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

BOARDMAN

Austintown and Boardman township officials met Thursday to finalize details of the joint purchase of a $1.5 million Motorola radio system.

Austintown Trustee Jim Davis said dispatchers in both townships will attend training together, and the new radio system should be installed by early spring.

Austintown will contribute about $700,000 funded through a loan agreement. Boardman’s $750,000 share of the project was paid for by federal grants and the Law Enforcement Trust Fund, which includes seized funds from drug raids.

Police Chief Jack Nichols explained that the dispatching system has three components: telephone, computer-assisted dispatch (CAD) and the radio system.

“All three are controlled by the dispatchers,” he said.

The radio system allows the dispatchers to communicate with the police officers on patrol, and the radio systems in both Austintown and Boardman are more than 20 years old. The federal government also has mandated all public-safety land-mobile-radio systems go to narrowband — switching from analog systems to digital — by 2013.

Mill Creek MetroParks police also will use the radio system and pay about $200,000 from a capital-improvement fund for the project, the park police chief has said.

“We’re trying to do a lot of regional collaboration” and save money in the process, said Boardman Trustee Larry Moliterno, noting the joint efforts of the Austintown-Boardman-Canfield Water and Storm Water District.