Bangor council mulls public safety proposals

BANGOR – Public safety was a major theme for city officials Tuesday.

During a meeting of the City Council’s government operations committee, chaired by Councilor Richard Greene, Bangor’s police and fire chiefs outlined two proposals. One involves improving response to major emergencies and the other, improving emergency communications.

Bangor has been tapped to host one of the four regional mobile command posts Maine Emergency Management Agency is buying with federal homeland security funds, according to police Chief Don Winslow.

The 40-foot-long vehicles would serve as workspace on wheels during crises requiring response from multiple agencies, such as major fires, plane crashes and searches for missing people, Winslow and Fire Chief Jeff Cammack said. The mobile command posts will be equipped with state-of-the-art communication equipment and accommodate up to 20 people.

Cammack said that the center would be housed in the central fire station on Main Street.

In anticipation of a flurry of requests from around the state for such vehicles, MEMA met with a statewide group of public safety officials. Together, they came up with a plan to place the units at strategic locations around Maine to maximize coverage. The idea is to spread them around so each can be deployed to major incidents in their respective service area.

In addition to Bangor, Winslow said, units will be housed at the Maine State Police barracks in Augusta and in York and Androscoggin counties. Winslow said smaller command posts would be purchased for placement in Presque Isle and Machias.

As a host, Bangor would provide routine maintenance and deliver the command post to the places it’s needed.

Also Tuesday, police and fire officials received the green light to pursue federal funds for improving emergency communications.

According to Winslow, the Department of Justice has made $80 million available nationwide for that purpose. Though Bangor is eligible for up to $3 million, coming up with the 25 percent match would be problematic, given the city’s budget constraints and the three-week time frame for applications.

To that end, the city’s fire and police department proposed applying for a $448,674 grant, which the committee authorized Tuesday. It is not yet clear how the city’s $149,000 match would be funded.

If the city is unable to come up with the match, it could decline the grant, Winslow said.

The money would be used for the first phase of a $2.4 million plan for improving emergency communications, not only among city departments, but with other agencies and meeting future Federal Communication Commission requirements.

The first phase, which will cost an estimated $600,000, calls for infrastructure improvements, including four new repeaters to complement the city’s two existing ones, and a system that tells radios which repeater to select.

Among the problems the improvements would address are radio “dead spots,” including the area near Eastern Maine Medical Center and along the Hammond Street bulge, Winslow said.