Alabama Chapter of NENA
Quarterly Meeting January 25, 2001
Anniston, Alabama

Welcome

President Ernie Blair called the meeting to order. After proceeding with the Pledge of Allegiance, Calhoun County 911 Director, Jerry Jackson, introduced Pastor Moore of Antioch Baptist Church who gave the invocation. Jerry Jackson and Anniston Mayor Chip Howell then welcomed the membership.

President Blair welcomed and recognized new members and visitors. Past member, Calhoun County Sheriff Larry Amerson, spoke briefly to the membership.

President Blair announced the new committee chairs as follows: Legislative Committee Chair, Seth Phelps; Wireless Committee Co-Chairs Bill Meadows and Max Armstrong; Regulatory Committee Chair, Art Faulkner. Mr. Blair stated that Ms. Jo Tranter had agreed to serve as Secretary and Mr. Richard Holt as Treasurer.

Presentation of Minutes and Financial Reports from October 2000

Minutes from the October meeting were presented for approval. Mr. Faulkner made a motion to approve the minutes as submitted, and Mr. Holt seconded the motion. All were in favor and the motion passed unanimously.

Mr. Holt presented the financial report for approval. Mr. Meadows made a motion to accept the report as presented, with Mr. Brodeur seconding. All were in favor and the motion passed unanimously.

Committee Reports

President Blair called for committee reports.

Mr. Art Faulkner reported for the Regulatory Committee. He stated that an agreement had been reached regarding Phase I Wireless between the Wireless Board and BellSouth where districts would be charged $97 per 1000 records loaded into P/ANI for BellSouth and $97 per 1000 for the remaining CLEC’s and Wireless Carriers instead of the $97 FOR EACH CLEC and Wireless Carrier they were paying each month. This would be a significant savings to the ECD’s and would make Phase I Wireless more affordable. He suggested holding off district audits until these changes can be implemented. Mr. Lee Helms wrote a letter regarding the change and the tariff amendment to the NENA membership (see attached). A special thanks to Mr. Ray Preston of BellSouth for his help in getting this task accomplished.

Mr. John Ellison stated that Mr. Helms deserved a lot of credit also as he opened the door at the cabinet level offices and because of the resulting good faith negotiations positive changes to Phase I Wireless were made possible. A motion was made by Mr. Ellison to send a letter of thanks to all those involved in the process. Motion was seconded by Mr. Roger Humphrey. Motion passed unanimously.

President Blair presented the Executive Committee Report. He stated the following agreed to serve as Committee Chairs for the next year: Public Relations, Roger Wilson; Membership, Donnie Smith/Chris Heger; Liaison, John Ellison; Historians, Larry Duncan/Jerry Jackson; Conference Chair, Chris Heger; Database Task Force, John Ellison/Art Faulkner; Database, Kelli Brasher; Internet, John Ellison; Minimum Standards, Richard Holt.

Mr. Seth Phelps stated there was nothing to report from the Legislative Committee at this time. He did suggest that one task the membership might want to pursue would be Health Insurance through the state government, as ECD’s are technically a subdivision of the state. Any other legislation the membership wishes to pursue please let him know.

Mr. Bill Meadows reported for the Wireless Committee. The Board was approached by the legislature to give an incentive to wireless carriers to set up in the rural part of the state.

The end of fiscal year statement showed $6,000,000 distributed by the Wireless Board last year. We are looking at $150,000,000 cost for Phase II. The FCC extended their deadline on Phase II Wireless. Mobile County is the only one at present to request Phase II Wireless at a cost of $20,000,000. The Committee will meet with FCC in Washington in March. At the present time BellSouth cannot transmit Phase II data.

Mr. Roger Wilson was not present to give a Public Relations report but Mr. Roger Humphrey stated that the PSA’s have been circulated throughout the state and the Red E. Fox costumes are out there and available for use.

Neither Ms. Chris Heger nor Mr. Donny Smith had anything to report on membership, and Mr. John Ellison stated there was nothing to report on Internet.

Mr. Richard Holt reported for the Minimum Standards Committee. He said that he and Ms. Hall had just made a presentation to state EMS and they were very receptive. State EMS voted unanimously to back the minimum standards set forward. There is one more presentation left to do for the Sheriff’s Association. The support segment is winding up and the next phase will be implementation by the Board. APCO has already made their selection to the Minimum Standards Board. They are Ms. Pat Hall and Mr. Richard Holt.

President Blair announced that Jerry Jackson would be heading a training committee for managerial employees, and that Ms. Tranter would co-chair. The duties would be to find and present some seminars for 911 managers.

Ms. Kelli Brasher reported for the Database Committee. She issued a caution to those who use 9-1-1 Net and submit ledgers/inquiries to SCC for entry into the database. The data should be checked for correctness, by you the user, after it has been input into the system. There is no safety net to find errors so you need to check your monthly report for all changes to ESN numbers, ranges, etc.

Ms. Brasher submitted the financial report for the October Gulf Coast 9-1-1 Conference. She stated that the conference was a great success and there were 689 people in attendance. It was the largest conference ever. Ms. Brasher thanked the vendors and sponsors for their continued support and donations that make this conference possible.

Mr. Blair led the membership in thanking Ms. Brasher for a job well done.

Ms. Chris Heger, the new Gulf Coast 9-1-1 Conference Chair, proposed a contest to choose the 2001 conference logo with the winner receiving a free registration to the conference. Ms. Heger suggested a possible theme might be “2001 - A Space Odyssey”.

Mr. John Ellison, representative for the Database Task Force Committee, reported that he has been discussing with SCC the concept of 9-1-1 districts maintaining their own database locally. Florida has already put out a request for a proposal from SCC. SCC has discussed giving Alabama a proposal reference 911 leaving BellSouth and maintaining its own database. The start up costs would be determined by how many districts participate in the program. A meeting addressing this issue will be announced later.

Mr. John Ellison commented on the Intelligent Transportation System Providers. Some other things to consider are air bag deployment, two-way pagers, cell phones, palms and how to make them work with 911. He is working on a pilot project with Alabama DOT for digital mapping. Each district will need a digital map base for Phase II Wireless. Birmingham to Montgomery will be the first map done by DOT. A meeting on the project will be held in the near future and all are welcome. He did a roll call of all counties present to update his GIS information base and requested that the remaining districts forward that information to him.

LATA Reports

There were no LATA reports given.

Old Business

There was no old business.

New Business

The National NENA Conference will be held in Orlando June 24-28. The State NENA Chapter will furnish shirts for all Alabama attendees.

Mr. Bill Brodeur asked that a statement policy be written for the handling of wireless calls statewide. Call backs are costly and time consuming, especially when the 9-1-1 call results from someone sitting on the phone button which keeps the line open indefinitely. Mr. Phelps suggested that the Wireless Committee write the policy and present it at the next Board meeting.

Mr. Al Tomlin from Dicatphone spoke to the membership regarding the company’s recent buy-out and filing of Chapter 11.

Mr. Vernon Lee of BellSouth reminded the membership of a scheduled ANI/ALI update for February 13 and 15. He also announced that the Mobile LATA prefix 251 will be changed to prefix 254 on June 18.

Adjournment

The next meeting will be Thursday, April 26, 2001 in Chambers County with the place to be announced.

There being no further business to discuss, Mr. Art Faulkner motioned to adjourn; Mr. Seth Phelps seconded; motion carried.