Ocean City Inks $5.4M Contract For Digital Radio System

OCEAN CITY — With its current 23-year-old system reaching the end of its useful life, Ocean City officials this month approved the purchase of a state-of-the-art stand-alone radio system for it emergency personnel.

Ocean City Emergency Services Director Joe Theobald came before the Mayor and Council last week seeking permission to ink a contract with Eastern Communications to replace the aging EDACS 800Mhz analog radio system with a new state-of-the-art digital Harris P25 Open Sky system. The current radio system, utilized by the police, fire and emergency services departments, along with other departments within the resort, has been in place for over two decades and will soon no longer be serviced.

“Our system is at end of life,” he said. “All support for the system totally ends by December 2017. We’d be lucky to find parts on eBay.”

While the current system continues to work flawlessly, Ocean City was faced with several options including sticking with the current system and gobbling up as many replacement radios and parts as it could, or begin exploring a new digital alternative to replace the decades-old system. In anticipation of the end of life for the current system, Theobald and Electronic Services Manager Bob Dimaio spent the last three years researching the alternatives and reviewing the options.

In December, Theobald sought and received permission from the Mayor and Council to begin negotiating a contract for the digital P25 radio system. Last week, he presented the results of those negotiations and despite the high price tag, the news was actually pretty good. Theobald said going in the project could be as high as $9.5 million.

However, Theobald said he and Dimaio were able to negotiate the not to exceed price to $5.4 million, or a little more than half of what was anticipated. The $5.4 million contract includes $208,000 for the SCADA system utilized by the water and wastewater departments, for example, along with another $167,000 in contingency funds for unforeseen expenses.

There was some urgency for the Mayor and Council to approve the requested contract for the P25 system. The 700Mhz and 900Mhz licensed frequencies that the P25 system were utilized were conditionally awarded to Ocean City with a one-year construction deadline that will expire on July 1. Theobald said the deadline to file for an extension is the end of this month.

“This is a time-sensitive vote,” he said. “We have a deadline of July 1 to file for an extension. We have to give them compelling reasons for asking for an extension or we risk losing these frequencies. If we’re under contract, we’re confident the extensions will be awarded.”

Theobald said he was confident Eastern Communications would deliver a state-of-the-art Harris P25 system that meets all of the resort’s needs.

“They want to design and deliver a showcase system to show off what they can do and they want it to be in Ocean City,” he said.

The new system will meet Ocean City’s highest standards of interoperability with Worcester County and other systems throughout the region while providing the resort with its own stand-alone system. There was some consideration given to a shared system with Worcester County that would result in some costs savings, but Theobald said the potential financial benefit would not outweigh the loss of independence with the radio system.

“We looked into sharing the cost with the county,” he said. “If we did so, our entire communication system would be in Snow Hill. We could save around $243,000, but I don’t recommend doing that. We want to maintain control of our own system.”

Not included in the new system is a fire station alerting system. Theobald explained that would also need to be replaced in the future and would not be cheap.

“The station alerting system should be a stand-alone project,” he said. “It’s not included in this proposal. It’s going to be costly, somewhere in the area of $500,000 to $700,000 in the future.”

The council ultimately approved the $5.4 million contract with Eastern Communications to design and deliver the new radio system for the resort. It will be paid for largely with a 10-year capital lease. Finance Administrator Martha Bennett estimated the annual cost for the life of the lease would be around $600,000 per year. However, the town currently earns about $450,000 per year for leasing antenna space on its water towers that will be used to offset the cost.

In a separate, but related issue, Theobald was seeking permission to upgrade the resort’s 911 communications center at a cost of around $300,000. The plan calls for cutting the existing emergency communication center and replacing the aging consoles and furniture. Theobald said he was confident about $200,000 of the $300,000 would be reimbursed. The council approved the upgrades and folded the expense into the cost of the new radio system.

“After spending $5 million three minutes ago, it makes sense to spend this $300,000 for the 911 upgrades,” said Councilman Wayne Hartman.

About The Author: Shawn Soper

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Shawn Soper has been with The Dispatch since 2000. He began as a staff writer covering various local government beats and general stories. His current positions include managing editor and sports editor. Growing up in Baltimore before moving to Ocean City full time three decades ago, Soper graduated from Loch Raven High School in 1981 and from Towson University in 1985 with degrees in mass communications with a journalism concentration and history.