Above the fold in today’s Sunday Oregonian: A $665 million Police Radio?
Oregon’s first responders need to be able to talk to one another, but a high-tech upgrade has quite the price tag.
Buried deep inside the proposed state budget is a public safety communication network that would cost an eye-popping $665 million, or about $200 for every man, woman and child in the state.
The “Oregon Wireless Interoperability Network” is envisioned as a sophisticated network of towers and equipment to enable all public safety responders — state, federal, city, county and tribal — to communicate by radio anywhere in the state.
Oregon’s upgrade, backed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski, would cost far more than the systems that a dozen other states have built. Only New York spent more — and per person, New York’s $1.2 billion system cost less.
Betsy Hammond, the Oregonian writer, emailed me last week asking about 700 Mhz radios (she read one of my stories). I told her I wasn’t really a subject matter expert and refered her to others. I never did hear back from her. She did tip me off that OWIN was a line item the State of Oregon budget, released this month. I wasn’t aware of that.
I consequently updated my research for my January 22nd article, Oregon’s $500 Million Statewide Wireless Network, which has a lot of additional links and information.
I suspect the Oregonian article was spurred by an examination of the state budget. I doubt this website had anything to do with it.
- Sam
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