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provided. In addition, the effectiveness and efficiently of personnel in the field may be improved through having the best possible radio system so that personnel can communicate essentially at will at all times. To put the cost of the recommended system in perspective, assume that the system is paid for by selling $10.64 million of bonds that would have a ten year life. Without regard to what budget or budgets would be used to obtain the funds to payoff the bonds, the citizens of Anoka County would have to contribute monies to build up a fund to payoff those bonds in ten years. The cost per year to payoff $1 0.64 million in bonds will probably be substantially less than 2% of the annually recurring cost of fire and law enforcement protection in the County. It is concluded that a less than 2% increase in cost of fire and law enforcement protection is worth that cost for the improved operating safety offrrefighters and law enforcement officers, and, especially, an even slight improvement in effectiveness and efficiency of personnel that can occur if the optimum land mobile radio system is placed in service. Service to the public can be improved. For example, at present, there are areas of the County in which it is likely that only half of the radio page receivers used by firefighters will receive page messages. During the day, there tend to be only a small number of volunteer firefighters available to respond to any fire incident. It is also becoming more and more difficult to recruit volunteer firefighters so many fire departments are understaffed. It is often essential that every available volunteer receive the radio page alert if a necessary minimum crew to man a fire truck will be able to respond. If half of the page receivers do not receive the page, due to poor coverage, then there may not be enough man power to man a truck, spool off hose, man pumps, and get into fire suppression duties. Therefore, fire protection can be substantially impaired without the best possible land mobile radio system being available for use. That is why it is concluded that even small increases in performance of the land mobile radio system can result in substantial improvements in the level of safety and service to the public. The additional cost being less than 2% of the cost of fire and law enforcement protection is justified. In reality, the differential between enhancing existing systems and replacing them with a modem trunked radio system is in the neighborhood of 1 % of the cost of fire and law enforcement protection. 4.4 SCHEDULE AND CRITICAL DECISION POINTS 4.4.1 Back-up Dispatchin2 Both the questionnaires returned by fire service and law enforcement personnel rates overall reliability of the land mobile radio systems as a critical need. In the event that the dispatch center in the Anoka County Government Center building had to be abandoned for any reason; for example, a gas leak in the building; there is no alternative location where dispatch center personnel can go to receive 9-1-1 calls from the public and to alert firefighter and law enforcement personnel to respond. This should be a major system reliability concern for all public officials in Anoka County. For that reason, it is recommended that an alternative back-up facility as described in Section 3.4.1 be implemented at the earliest possible date. That back-up dispatch center would work with either an enhanced land mobile radio system or with a system Ronald Vegemast Engineering, Inc. -38- Report: Anoka County