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Sarasota News Leader April 12, 2013 Page 16 The memo adds, "Each time we have a failure and have to restart [the master site controller], we run the risk of it not restarting. That would be a catastrophic failure and potentially lead to a communications blackout throughout Sarasota County." THE NEW AND THE OLD Tobias explained that the new system, as planned, would include two extra antennas to eliminate current coverage problems on St. Armands and north Longboat Key as well as an area east of North Port. Additionally, fiber optic cable would be laid between the county's new Emergency Operations/911 Center on Porter Way and the antenna sites. The present system utilizes leased telephone lines that cost the county about $52,000 a year, he added. It also would have a microwave network for redundancy purposes. Sarasota County firefighters learn early on how critical a piece of equipment their radios are, Chief Mike Tobias says. Photo courtesy Sarasota County Another $1.6 million will have to come out of the county's general fund for the non-public safety officer radios, for example, he said. Replacing the Sheriff's Office radios will cost about $6.9 million. Alternatively, a system upgrade would cost about $5.3 million, Tobias noted, and it could be implemented in about six months. However, if the county pursued that option, it would have no choice but to keep using Motorola's equipment when it went ahead with the P25 system. One other component would be GPS tracking capability for all the radios, which could save lives by enabling public safety officials to locate a first responder who stopped communicating for an unexplained reason. If the That would end up making the total project person were immobile for a period of time, cost between $19.1 million and $19.3 million, the radio would alert the dispatch center, Tohe said. bias noted. It would take a full 18 months to implement THE DISCUSSION the new system, he pointed out. When Patterson asked whether Sarasota Means to pay for the new radios themselves County public safety personnel can commuhas not been identified except for those re- nicate with their counterparts in Manatee quired by the county Fire Department, Tobi- County now, Tobias replied, "We have limited as told the commission; that expense will be capabilities" because of coverage problems. $3.9 million. Dispatch personnel have to manually place