Board Members Present: Clarence Babineaux, Fred McClanahan, Van Anderson, David McCullough, Sam Williamson

Board Members Absent: Archer Frierson, Reverend Roy Thomas

Others Present: Martha Carter, Judy Rachal, Richard Stewart, Arthur Meacham, Beth Ann Carter, Howard Adkins, Wes Edge (9-1-1 Staff) Michael Wainwright (Legal Counsel), Stephanie Doiron, Pam Cowan (AT&T Representatives)

Mr. Babineaux called the meeting to order and asked that attendance be noted. Mr. Babineaux asked the Board to consider a motion to approve the minutes of the Tuesday, September 18, 2007 meeting. Mr. McClanahan moved and Mr. Williamson seconded the motion that the minutes be approved as submitted. The motion was unanimously approved.

Mr. Babineaux asked the Board to consider a motion, taking Agenda Item 5A out of order, so that AT&T Representatives, Ms. Doiron and Ms. Cowan could address the Board. Mr. McClanahan moved and Mr. Williamson seconded the motion, which was then approved unanimously. Ms. Carter introduced Ms. Doiron, who is the AT&T Sales Manager for the State of Louisiana and Ms. Cowan as AT&T’s local 9-1-1 Account Manager. Ms. Carter gave an overview to the Board on the recent AT&T central office failures. Ms. Carter stated that on Friday, September 7, 2007 the AT&T Main Central Office experienced a failure, during an upgrade of power supply equipment in the central office. Ms. Carter stated that then on Wednesday, October 10th another central office failure occurred. Ms. Carter then asked Ms. Doiron to provide further explanation to the Board. Ms. Doiron stated that on September 7th a power supply upgrade in the Shreveport DACS experienced problems, which caused the central office to fail two separate times. Because this type of power supply upgrade had not caused problems in any of the other central offices when it was performed, it was considered as a non-service affecting maintenance upgrade, and as a result, the 9-1-1 District was not notified in advance. Unfortunately, an outage occurred during the replacement of the power supply units, and when it was reported that the District was experiencing problems, the maintenance was stopped immediately. After the failure, it was discovered that the manner in which the circuits were routed in the central office, did not provide optimum protection. Ms. Doiron stated that by re-routing the circuits between two different shelves in the central office, it should reduce the potential for a failure in preparation of the change out of the power supply equipment, which still had to be completed. Before this maintenance could be scheduled to replace the defective power supplies, an actual power supply failure occurred in the Central Office on October 10th. Ms. Doiron stated that fortunately, parts were on hand to replace the defective power supplies and the replacement was completed at that time. Ms. Doiron stated, however, that although corrective action was taken in the central office to split the circuits into separate shelves and have separate power supplies, additional modifications needed to be made at the 9-1-1 center to complete network diversification to provide total network redundancy. Ms. Carter asked Ms. Doiron for a time-frame for the implementation/cut-over/migration plan. Ms. Doiron stated that the plan is being actively developed, and the District would be notified as soon as it was formalized. Mr. Babineaux stated that he understood the potential for failure was still a possibility and wanted AT&T to know that the Board is concerned, and a speedy resolution to this problem is of the utmost importance. Ms. Doiron stated she totally agreed. Mr. McClanahan stated his first concern was why the notification protocol was not followed since they had been in place for a long time even though it was not supposed to be service interrupting. Mr. McClanahan stated that although AT&T may have new people, they needed to understand that anything they do around the District’s circuits has the potential to be service affecting. Mr. McClanahan also stated that he was concerned over Ms. Doiron’s comment regarding the duration of the second outage. Time delays in reporting a house fire can produce catastrophic results. Mr. McClanahan stated that any amount of time delay has the potential to affect the agencies’ abilities to respond to the citizens. Thirty seconds is too much time. The fire and police departments measure their response time in minutes and seconds, because it makes a difference. The Board wants AT&T to understand that these minutes and seconds are important to the citizens of Caddo Parish. Ms. Carter confirmed with Ms. Doiron that AT&T would not perform any circuit maintenance without notification to the District, and because of this failure Ms. Doiron stated that all of the AT&T notification protocols would be looked at and changes incorporated immediately. Ms. Doiron would also take our technical questions concerning call routing back to their technical people for research.

Ms. Carter explained that these recent failures also gave the District an opportunity to look at existing disaster recovery plans. She stated that she has asked AT&T to research the feasibility of moving forward with mirroring the existing network out of a foreign or remote central office. Mirroring a foreign exchange in East Texas is not possible due to LATA restrictions. She explained the current back up procedures involved in re-directing calls to an alternate location in the event that the facility has to be evacuated due to fire, chemical spill, etc. Ms. Carter also stated that she has also asked for pricing information on installing a full back-up PSAP at the Bossier Office of Homeland Security in the event that the District would have to evacuate the facility and operate for an extended period of time remotely.

The Board directed Ms. Carter to draft a letter to AT&T memorializing the discussions from the board meeting. Mr. Wainwright suggested an annual review or audit with AT&T to reaffirm any technological advances or changes in protocol, and to review the District’s network.

Mr. Babineaux called the financial report for September. Ms. Carter stated for the month of September, the District had monthly revenues of $265,189.96 with total monthly expenditures of $126,477.17, which resulted in $138,712.79 in excess revenue over expenditures. Cash on Hand - $3,636,447.68. Total Fixed Assets - $21,450,832.84.

Mr. Babineaux asked for a status report on the parish-wide mobile data computer system project. Ms. Carter stated that the District was working to develop a schedule to conduct a pilot test is for the new 700/800 MHz dual band base stations. The purpose of the pilot test is: 1) to verify and test that the system will not have any interference with Sprint/Nextel 2)to verify there will not be any interference problems with frequency re-use. The system is being designed for seven sites using the District’s five data channels, which means that two frequencies will have to re-used. The system is being designed to use two frequencies being placed at different towers that do not overlap, which should not create any interference problems 3) to test the 700/800 MHz dual band base stations since it is a brand new product. The current timeline is to have all of the base stations and infrastructure equipment shipped and installed by February 2008.

Ms. Carter further stated that a kick-off meeting with RCC and representatives from each of the participating agencies had been scheduled for October 30th. During this meeting system implementation steps will be discussed as well system testing and final system acceptance procedures, training and project timelines.

As reported in email correspondences, contract negotiations with Intergraph resumed on October 11th. Ms. Carter stated she felt very positive that a contract would be ready to present to the City by the end of November. The month timeframe was given because of the development of the Statement of Work (SOW). The SOW outlines how Intergraph will design the system to meet the needs as outlined in the original system specifications and is a very tedious process. Once completed the SOW will become a part of the final contract document.

Ms. Carter stated that the total budget for the 2004 COPS grant is approximately $3,998,000. She stated that now that contracts have been negotiated with Dataradio for the infrastructure and Intergraph for the software, she felt that in order to meet the needs as requested by all of the agencies, that the grant budget would be overspent. She explained that once the software and laptops for the Shreveport Fire Department were purchased, the final purchase would be the laptops for the various public safety agencies. She stated that these laptops would be purchased from the State of Louisiana contract, due to the fact that none of the vendors bid on the non-ruggedized mobile data computers. Ms. Carter stated that she felt that there would be a budget shortage of approximately $200,000. Ms. Carter stated she will be proposing to the Board to include funds within the District’s 2008 Operating Budget to make up the project deficit. Ms. Carter asked the Board for their approval for the District to fund the shortage as opposed to cutting the number of units to the parish’s public safety agencies. Mr. Babineaux agreed that District funds should be used as long as the needed funds were available and not committed for other projects. Mr. McClanahan stated he felt the District had an obligation, because of its participation in the grant, to complete the project as specified. Ms. Carter stated that after the contracts with Intergraph and Motorola are finalized, she would be able to give the board a definitive amount of monies needed to complete the project.

Mr. Babineaux asked for a report on the status of the 800 MHz reconfiguration project. Ms. Carter stated that the District is working with Motorola to finalize a Frequency Reconfiguration Agreement (FRA) proposal. Ms. Carter reported that as of October 4th, the District had received sections of a draft frequency reconfiguration agreement. She stated that the District and RCC had noted several errors and returned the proposal to Motorola. She stated that the reconfiguration pricing portion or the estimated costs to perform the reconfiguration had not been submitted by Motorola, which is a major portion of the final FRA agreement.

Ms. Carter reported that due to the latest estimate of when Motorola will have their Reconfiguration plan to us, the District has to advise the FCC’s Transition Administrator (TA) on October 18th to file an additional extension on behalf of the District for November 17th. If the District fails to submit a FRA to Sprint by December 8th, the District will have to file a request for extension directly to the FCC with additional explanations of why the District cannot meet the December 15th deadline. Ms. Carter stated she was more concerned about submitting an accurate and comprehensive FRA to Sprint, and this concern was stressed to the TA. She explained that according to the TA, an extension can be requested for three reasons: size and complexity of the system, degree of complexity and level of interoperability with other systems that are being rebanded, and failure of vendor to provide accurate or timely information. She stated that the District qualifies for all three reasons. The current projected timeline proposed by Motorola to complete the total reconfiguration is 278 days with a proposed start date of 1/1/08 and ending 2/09. Ms. Carter expressed to the TA that development of the process, how we do it without taking the system down and maintaining the safety of the public, are more important to the District than meeting a deadline.

Mr. Babineaux called for any new business. Ms. Carter stated that within the 2004 COPS grant monies were budgeted for engineering and consulting services, and a contract was executed between the City of Shreveport and RCC Consultants for the engineering and professional services to assist in the design and purchase of the parish-wide mobile data computer system. The contract included the creation of a detailed design review document or needs assessment analysis, the development of system and equipment technical specifications and contract negotiations. The contract between the City and RCC did not include on-going technical support during the actual implementation. Based upon the technical expertise of the District’s staff, RCC did not include implementation in the SOW.

Ms. Carter stated that although the District’s staff was very versed on the technical requirements and steps necessary to implement parish-wide communications system, there were several complex issues that will need to be addressed when implementing a new product. The implementation of a new dual band 700/800 MHz infrastructure was not contemplated nor did it exist when the Statement of Work was developed and the contract was negotiated in 2005.

Ms. Carter stated that due to the complexity of the new dual band infrastructure, she asked RCC to provide the District with a Statement of Work and associated contract costs for their services for engineering and technical support during the implementation phase on a not to exceed basis of $35,000. Ms. Carter stated that she wanted to be able to call on RCC during the cutover and acceptance testing phase. Ms. Carter explained that the District currently has RCC under contract for rebanding of the 800 MHz system, and this would be an amendment to the current contract. Ms. Carter asked the Board for favorable consideration to execute an amendment to the existing professional services agreement with RCC Consultants. Mr. McClanahan moved authorizing Ms. Carter to execute an amendment to the existing professional services agreement with RCC Consultants, for consulting services associated with the implementation of the mobile data infrastructure, and Mr. Williamson seconded the motion, which was then unanimously approved.

Ms. Carter stated that the District is advertising for the Radio System Technician position and that the position is being advertised nationwide through the APCO website, through the local newspapers, and by posting on the 9-1-1 website. She explained that the closing date for applications is November 30th.

Mr. Babineaux called for any additional business. With no further business to be brought before the Board, Mr. Babineaux adjourned the meeting.