About 18 minutes into The Newtown Bee’s latest “Watch & Learn” webcast designed to help residents understand details of a new townwide emergency communications system upgrade they are being asked to endorse in this year’s budget referendum, local volunteer firefighter Mark DeWolfe summed up why voter consideration is so important.

“This radio system benefits every single resident, every visitor, every traveler, everyone who does business in Newtown,” he said. “Everyone benefits from the advantages of having a capable, properly sized, and adequate radio system.”

This budget season, which culminates with an in-person voting session April 27, taxpayers will vote not only on the town and school district budget requests, but also on capital bonding authorizations for a $1.5 million gas boiler and LED lighting upgrade for the Reed Intermediate School; $3.7 million for the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial; and $5,041,933 that represents the remaining balance on a local emergency radio and communications system upgrade.

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Voters are being asked to authorize the balance because in 2020, under an executive order due to COVID-19, the Legislative Council authorized $2.5 million for the first phase of the $7.5 million improvement. The funds authorized last year primarily paid for hardware and equipment that was necessary to order far in advance of the installation, which will commence later this year after the rest of the funding is okayed.

The first webcast in a two-part series entitled “Watch & Learn Before You Vote” covered details of the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial. The videos are available on The Bee’s Facebook page under the Videos tab and on The Bee’s YouTube channel.

The panel for this “Watch & Learn” webcast included Sandy Hook Fire Chief and Newtown Emergency Management Director Bill Halstead; Newtown Emergency Communications Director Maureen Will; and DeWolfe, a longtime local volunteer firefighter who assisted in developing the project.

Coincidentally, the event was presented during National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, which celebrates the critical, and sometimes life-saving efforts of emergency dispatchers.

Radio Silence Scares

Halstead opened the discussion by describing several incidents in recent years where the existing, outdated analog radio system failed in various dead spots during critical fire and rescue responses. DeWolfe also described a similar situation.

In each case, firefighter command personnel either had to use mobile phones to relate information to other responding apparatus through the local emergency dispatch center, or had to relate communications to approaching responders, who in turn relayed the messages to dispatchers who were temporarily blacked out of the radio transmissions.

Halstead explained that any call for fire, police, or EMS assistance, depending on its location, could put responders into situations where they are temporarily out of touch with the dispatch center and/or others heading to assist.

He noted situations where structure fires occurred in dead zones, and a precarious rescue in early 2020 where numerous parties capsized in a boat on the Housatonic during which mobile phone relays were the only means of communicating with the dispatch center.

As director of Emergency Management, his concerns are amplified when considering the significant number of in-town and possibly out-of-town responders who might be affected in the aftermath of a serious hurricane, tornado, other weather event, or large-scale emergency.

“When we bought the present system in 2003, we were told at the time it [had a 15-year lifespan]. We’re over 15 years now, and the system is just starting to fail,” he said. Halstead noted that due to delays, or the now-impossible task of obtaining parts, responding agencies have to take parts from less-used vehicles to install into radio systems of other apparatus and police vehicles.

“We’re looking all over the country for these parts so repairs can be made,” Halstead related, adding that one broken part caused one of Newtown’s emergency radio towers to be inoperative for almost a month.

“All of this equipment has been in these trucks for 18 years, and they fail,” he said.

DeWolfe asked residents to consider electronic items in their own homes.

“I don’t know if people realize that the fixed end equipment [pagers, in-vehicle and portable radios, as well as dispatch center consoles] were turned on the day we bought it, and it has been on and operating around the clock since then,” he said. “If you think of your own home appliances, there aren’t many pieces that you keep running 15, 16, 17 years nonstop.

A Life/Safety Issue

“It really is a life/safety issue for fire, ambulance, and police — the number of calls have increased exponentially, that equipment has reached end of life, it’s heavily taxed, and we simply must replace it,” he added.

From the dispatch side, Will talked about the tense moments she and her staff experience when units responding to serious calls suddenly go dark.

“They’re in a dead zone, we know it, everybody takes a breath because there’s no point in panicking,” Will said, adding that dispatchers hope that period of radio silence will pass. “We know where they are going, we know to anticipate, but we also know with this new system, everything is new and [functioning at] 100 percent.”

She said the new system design resulted from input from dozens of local responders along with highly experienced consultants and vendors.

Will said with the first phase of the system upgrade already in place, responders are already noticing positive differences with the quality of the digital transmissions over the soon-to-be-retired analog equipment.

“And it’s only going to get better from here with these enhancements,” she added. “Many of these [responders] are with Public Works, or they’re with EMS or the police department. They are all over the place — and it’s husbands, wives, fathers, sons, daughters. And my staff tries to protect them all.

“We want to get them out quickly and safely with the right information, but we want to get them back home, too.”

No-excuse absentee budget balloting is already underway, and voters can obtain those ballots now from the town clerk, who is also holding a special no-excuse budget voting session on Saturday, April 24, from 9 am to noon. Otherwise, residents can cast their ballots at the Newtown Middle School polling location Tuesday, April 27, between 6 am and 8 pm. Voters who do not wish to go to the polls at the middle school can cast absentee ballots on April 27 at the Town Clerk’s office from 8 am to 8 pm.