There were multiple budget items discussed at the May 16, 2023, City Council Special Agenda meeting.

The golf course budget was adjusted to offset higher utilities costs. Funds were allocated for a splash pad, improvements to the animal shelter, an electronic display, an all-terrain vehicle and gate improvements for Horseshoe Bend.

Page Public Library and Parks and Recreation each had a new employee added to their budgets. The Page Fire Department budget was adjusted to hire two new firefighters. The Page Police Department budget was adjusted to hire four new police officers.

One of the most significant items on the agenda was the Project 25 (P25) radio system for police, fire and rescue communications.

Originally, the city planned to purchase the P25 upgrade the same way they purchase other high-ticket items, like the recent Engine No. 10 firetruck: They save money over several years by socking it away in a capital improvement fund. 

The city council recognized the importance of the upgrade and expedited the process. Council combined $406,000 from Police Department Equipment Capital Fund with $500,000 from the General Fund and made the purchase.

Page City Council member Mike Farrow knows how critical reliable communication is: He began his career serving in the U.S. Air Force Pararescue division, then spent 30 years in intelligence and protective services.

“Our fire department and our police department, among our different services, are very important to me,” said Farrow. 

“In my meetings with them, we talk about interoperability, and that would be the ability for police to talk to fire, fire to talk to police. Within those units, they can talk from command structure to the officer that’s in a distant location that’s handling a challenge event. An example was given to me one time that a firefighter inside a house, it was difficult for the fire chief to be able to communicate with his firefighters. So there never should be a process that challenges the command staff or support staff to talk to their officers, doing their duty, risking their lives to protect our people.

“It was budgeted, but it was budgeted over multiple years. We, the council, felt that this was such an urgency that our law enforcement and firefighters emergency personnel were so important that we said we should not delay this for these people. When you’re in need, it’s a traffic accident, it’s a house fire, it’s an emergency response. And we have firefighters entering the homes committed to saving lives and protecting people. The last thing we want to have is a disruption in communication that helps that process.”

Page Police Department Chief Tim Lange recounted a time when local police were chasing a stolen vehicle suspect out in the desert on Coppermine Road.

“A guy had stolen a car. He abandoned it out there, and we had a foot pursuit with him. I was actually on that call myself. Me and the other officers are chasing this guy, and it would be between PSI (PSI Waste Systems Inc.) and the ‘res’ line out there. We couldn’t hit a repeater to talk to dispatch,” he said. “The equipment that we were working off of was just old and outdated, as it turned out.” 

“The reliability factor down on (Highway) 89, down like in the Denny’s area, you couldn’t get out on your portable at all,” said Lange. “You could get out from your vehicle radio, but when you’re out and need help, you’re usually not in your unit, in your vehicle. You’re out on foot. And if you think about that, that’s just dangerous. So [the P25 radio upgrade] is going to increase officer safety because of the reliability, and we’re really happy that we’re getting them.”

Assistant Fire Chief Joe Noonchester said the new system is a huge upgrade for Page Fire Department.

“It does so many things that improve the communication for the fire department,” he said. “It’s pretty incredible. Probably the biggest upside to this new system is our ability to be more interoperable with all the other agencies that are in the area. We’ll be able to communicate much better with all of those folks. And the system is so robust … that the strength and clarity over the radio is head and shoulders above what it used to be.”

Noonchester said the new system almost eliminates dead spots in coverage not only in Page but also in outlying areas. He said the tower upgrades are largely responsible for the stronger signals.

“The whole system is new. Antennas are new. The console and the dispatch center is new,” he said.

“All the actual hardware is new. It’s just brand-new technology that works so much better. And without getting into a lot of the nitty gritty details of it, just know that it’s stronger, clearer and has better service area.

“Another really big feature for us that’s very unique to the fire department is that the portable radios that we have now, they’re an NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) rated portable radio that we can take into hot environments that tell us things like ambient temperature. They have GPS services on them. They’re submersible in water. They are intrinsically safe. There’s a lot of big upgrades as far as our portable radios for the safety of our firefighters.”

Kane Scott, the information technology director for Page, said the city has had some issues with radios for a while. 

“We’ve tried to kind of just plug and fix. We’ve had some really old equipment that you couldn’t get parts for anymore that if they would have gone out, it would have really affected us. We’ve kind of, just in the nick of time, have started getting this stuff replaced so we can actually maintain the equipment now,” he said.

“We’ve done pretty good as a city as far as getting remote stations and stuff in place at the water tower, at city hall location, down at the sheriff’s office. We’ve done good trying to place everything so we can have good coverage not only in the police vehicles, but if somebody has their portable radio inside a building. We need to ensure that those radios still work. It’s kind of a combination of trying to make all this work over the years, and we’ve struggled with that, where police officers will get into a foot chase and get out of signal and nobody can hear what’s going on, stuff like this. This improves all of that.”

Scott said some of the city’s antennas are over 25 years old.

“Those are all being replaced. Anything that’s substandard right now on that new radio network is being replaced with this money, everything will be brand-new and of the latest technology,” he said.

Lange commended Flagstaff’s Niles Radio Communications for working closely with police and fire departments throughout the upgrade process.

“John Lindsay is the guy that’s kind of leading up our project. They’ve been great to work with. They keep us updated on what they’re going to do, what they’re doing and what they’ve done. For such a huge project, switching over a police department and a fire department for us, it’s been pretty smooth. It’s been pretty seamless, and there hasn’t been any surprises. And, man, they’re just great guys to work with over there. We’re glad to be partnered with them for sure,” Lange said.

“Even without the P25 installation yet complete, when we partnered with Niles, they came up here and made the equipment we had better, a lot better than it was. I mean, we don’t have those holes that we had at one time because of some upgrades and things that they did for our current system to try to make it safer for us. They didn’t have to do that, but they did.”

“We’re getting really close now,” Noonchester said last week. “We’ve got, I’d say, probably at least half of our vehicles have now been equipped with new radios, the portable radios we’re starting to use now. But as far as fully functional, I’d say within two weeks, maybe from here.”

“Communication is the lifeline,” Farrow said of the $905,000 investment. “There’s not even a delay in my thinking of the necessity to protect our officers, protect our firefighters, doing what they do best to risk their lives to help our people. It’s money well-served. Ultimately, for anybody that needs the firefighters, the paramedics, the police department, anything of an emergency, I don’t think anybody wants a delay in services because a loss of connection.”

The new system allows Page police and firefighters to communicate with other agencies, even those with older systems because the P25 Phase 2 standard is backward compatible with analog and older digital radio systems. The standard uses a narrower frequency band than analog, and the Phase 2 version allows data transmission as well as two voices per channel. The more efficient use of bandwidth also extends battery life in handheld field radios.