Board Members Present: Clarence Babineaux, Sam Williamson, Archer Frierson III, Fred McClanahan, Reverend Roy Thomas, David McCullough

Board Members Absent: Van Anderson

Others Present: Martha Carter, Judy Rachal, Richard Stewart, Arthur Meacham, Beth Ann Carter, (9-1-1 Staff) and Michael Wainwright (Legal Counsel)

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, August 21, 2007 meeting. Reverend Thomas moved and Mr. McClanahan seconded the motion that the minutes be approved as submitted. The motion was unanimously approved.

Mr. Babineaux asked Ms. Carter for a report on the monthly financials. Ms. Carter stated per the compiled financial statements prepared by Cook & Morehart, the District had monthly revenues of $444,146.18 with total monthly expenditures of $208,678.72, which resulted in $235,467.46 in excess revenue over expenditures, with total cash on hand of $3,498,106.70. Total Fixed Assets of $21,450,832.84. Ms. Carter stated that the August financials will be used as the basis for beginning the budget preparation process for any budget amendments to the 2007 budget and development of the 2008 operating budget. She stated that she will be convening the Budget sub-committee sometimes in the month of October.

Mr. Babineaux asked Ms. Carter for a report on the AT&T central office failure on September 7, 2007. Ms. Carter stated as a follow-up to the email correspondence from Saturday, Sept. 8th, regarding the complete central office failure, a conference call was held on Monday, September 10th with Ms. Wall, the AT&T Service Manager for Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Ms. Wall related that AT&T had performed this upgrade in all of the other eight states and had not experienced any problems with their central offices, therefore, did not anticipate any problems with the upgrade to the Shreveport Main central office. Ms. Carter explained there are back-up circuits in place in the event of a downed circuit where rerouting would take place without interruption of service. With the loss of the entire Shreveport Main central office, there is no routing capability. Ms. Carter stated that plans are being made now with the network engineers for mirroring the 9-1-1 network, coming from a foreign or different office exchange.

Ms. Carter further explained that the District has several levels of back-up procedures or emergency plans in place; the highest procedure is relocating to the Office of Homeland Security/Emergency Preparedness Emergency Operations Center in Bossier City. Once it was realized there was a total tandem failure, which affected 11 parishes, moving the communications operations to Bossier would not do any good.

Ms. Carter stated that she also asked for further explanation of why AT&T did not feel that it was not necessary to notify the 9-1-1 Districts in advance of the upgrade. Based upon their recent upgrade experiences in other states, AT&T had no knowledge of problems with their upgrade, therefore proceeded with the upgrade in Shreveport without any notification. Previously AT&T would call to make sure that no major incidents were going on before starting their upgrades. Planning an upgrade for midnight on a Friday night without notification to the Districts was totally against all previously established protocols. AT&T is supposed to provide a complete report to the District in a follow-up meeting scheduled for September 21st.

Mr. Babineaux asked for a status report on the mobile data computer system project. Ms. Carter stated that an agreement with Dataradio Corporation had been executed. Pursuant to the terms of the contract Dataradio will have 330 calendar days from the notice to proceed to complete the project. Ms. Carter reported that she felt that the kick-off meeting held on Thursday, September 13th between Dataradio and the District’s technical staff was a success. Ms. Carter stated that based upon that meeting the District now has a good understanding of what tasks were needed for Dataradio to start immediately. One of the first things the District is charged with is developing a network plan. Mr. Edge and Mr. Adkins will be attending a well-timed users’ group meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Sessions will focus on basic radio frequency principles as well as network management.

Ms. Carter further stated another assessment of the District’s radio towers would be needed. She stated that the first modems should be delivered in December and base stations should be operational by February, 2008. Ms. Carter stressed that this timeline is very aggressive. The District staff is currently working on the development of an installation plan for the modems to be installed in the vehicles and a plan on how to transition the existing mobile data systems into the new system. The installation of the infrastructure is the first phase of the mobile data project.

Ms. Carter stated that the second phase of the project is the mobile data software. Ms. Carter reported that contract negotiations with Intergraph was taking much longer than anticipated and that numerous conference calls had been conducted to address the District’s concerns over inflated project management costs and differences in contract pricing on projects of similar size. Ms. Carter stated that acceptance of a contract on behalf of the City of Shreveport, which is less than what the District has currently, is not acceptable. She stated that Intergraph does not want Liquidated damages or to provide a performance bond, which she feels is critical and is a showstopper. Ms. Carter said that she would keep the Board informed of the negotiations progress.

Mr. Babineaux called for any old business. Ms. Carter stated that the Shreveport Police Department is on the list of COPS Grant recipients on the COPS website, even though the official package has not been received by the City. She stated that 37 agencies out of 250 applicants were awarded grants. As soon as the Police Department receives official notice and signs off on the grant award package, she will get with the City to discuss a joint press conference.

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