Aug 14, 2024 By Mike Jones 3 min read

Washington County officials are planning to negotiate a multimillion-dollar contract with Motorola to install the new emergency radio system for first responders, although no details on the cost or scope of the work have been released.

The county commissioners are expected to vote during their regular meeting Thursday morning on the contract with Motorola Solutions Inc. of Chicago that is apparently contingent upon final negotiations during a meeting with the telecommunications company today.

“We know the 14 sites we are choosing. We have a coverage meeting (Wednesday),” county Chief of Staff Daryl Price said about a private public safety committee meeting today to discuss the tower locations for the radio signals.

That prompted Commissioner Larry Maggi to raise concerns during Tuesday morning’s agenda setting meeting about how the process is being handled, including why there was no information about the contract when they decided to put it up for a vote Thursday.

“I don’t know how we can vote on a contract when we don’t have (the numbers),” Maggi said.

County officials and the public safety committee made up of several first responders have spent the last six weeks reviewing emergency radio contracts submitted by three different providers on June 25. The meetings have been private and committee members were required to sign non-disclosure agreements and ordered not to speak publicly about the proposals. MRA Inc. of North Strabane and BK Technologies Inc. of Melbourne, Fla., were the other two vendors that submitted proposals for the radio system.

Commission Chairman Nick Sherman said if they want to approve the contract with Motorola this month – as was his stated goal from the beginning in order to use federal American Rescue Plan Act stimulus money before the end of the year – they needed to take this step in order to be able to vote on it Thursday.

“We have to put it on the agenda,” Sherman said.

“We’re bound by it,” Maggi said of the possible ramifications. “What if it’s an exorbitant price?”

Sherman responded that this is part of the negotiating process and they could walk away from Motorola and consider other options before taking a vote.

“If we’re not happy with the final numbers, we’ll pull it (from the agenda),” Sherman said.

Sherman has been pushing for Motorola to provide the emergency radio system for the county since early last year when he voted against a $22.545 million contract with MRA Inc. Maggi and former commission chairwoman Diana Irey Vaughan, who retired when her term expired in January, voted to approve the contract with MRA in March 2023 in order for it to upgrade the radio system.

But Sherman and new Commissioner Electra Janis voted in April to terminate that contract and request new proposals from telecommunications vendors, despite already spending nearly $9 million to have MRA begin building its system last year. Motorola also submitted a bid in early 2023, but was not chosen and later submitted a subsequent bid in July, which Sherman favored despite it arriving past the deadline.

During this round of proposals, Motorola submitted two options – a primary bid and an alternate – although it’s not known which is being considered or if there is an option to select a hybrid version of the two.

The voting meeting will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday in the commissioners’ public meeting room on the ground floor of the Crossroads Center building at 95 W. Beau St. in Washington.