| Mar 12, 2014


At a Committee of the Whole meeting last week (March 5), members of Frontenac County Council took turns expressing concern about a report about emergency communications that they received from the fire chiefs of the four Frontenac townships in mid-February.

The report, which was funded by Frontenac County on the request of the four local townships, was initiated in reaction to an upgrade to the communications system in both the City of Kingston and the County of Leeds Grenville.

What Council found most objectionable was the price tag of $5-7 million for an upgraded system that would be compatible with the neighbouring systems.

Frontenac Islands Mayor Dennis Doyle wanted to see the ambulance and police services involved in a cross-jurisdictional solution to the needs.

Councilor John Purdon from Central Frontenac said the matter is the responsibility of the townships, and that's where it should be discussed.

Councilor John Inglis, from North Frontenac, wondered how this need for a new system had come about. “In all the time I served on the fire department we never talked about this issue, and we have never talked about it at council, and now we are faced with this huge cost,” he said.

North Frontenac Mayor Bud Clayton said, “It is all a matter of needs versus wants. We are only required to provide fire safety and education services as a municipality. Fire suppression is an optional service. This is another want, not a need."

Central Frontenac Mayor Janet Gutowski said the study and its presentation “are an example of how things shouldn't be done. This report is real geek; it is a technical report, which I do not have the expertise to evaluate. We miss-stepped in funding the study in the first place. The advancement of this should have gone through a different chain of command. Our staff could have brought forward the study, and presented options for how to deal with it. I suggest we refer this to our staff and the fire chiefs can work with their CAOs to see how we can cost share on this.”

South Frontenac Fire Chief Rick Cheseborough attended the meeting. He was given leave to speak after all the councilors had had a chance to comment.

“I would like to start by saying that under no circumstances is it the Township of South Frontenac or myself that is doing this. This is the largest joint project of the public works departments from all the townships. I am just the lucky one who got to speak for the group. We did not bring this to the county expecting a decision from County Council. It is just that since the county funded the study we thought we should report back to the county first ... we did not go into this expecting to see these kinds of costs, but the facts are what they are ... we are going to go to our individual councils with this and we will see what happens.”

Cheseborough pointed out as well that once Leeds and Grenville and Kingston bring their new system on line, firefighters from Frontenac County will no longer be able to communicate with firefighters from those jurisdictions. He also said that he does not know how Lennox and Addington and Lanark County are dealing with this matter.

While the reception at Frontenac County was rough, a presentation to South Frontenac Council a week later (March 11) found a more receptive audience.

Rick Cheseborough pointed out that the existing system is no longer being supported by manufacturers because it is basically an analogue system that is being replaced by a digital one

“In January the power to our main tower [located near Hartington] went down. Not only did we not have a battery backup, but it took two days to find some parts and three and a half weeks to find another part,” he said. “The current system will simply not be viable in the future.”

He added that the costing estimate that caused such consternation at the county is not based on any studies.

“The County insisted on seeing some pricing so we got that figure by using the $6 million that Leeds and Grenville spent and the $10 million that Kingston is spending. What we need to do is look at our own circumstances and do the technical studies to find some real pricing. Then we can figure out what we want to do and how we can pay for it.”

Mayor Davison, who missed the County meeting last week because he was on vacation, said to Cheseborough, “I’d like to publicly state that you did a good job with this report.”

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