County Gets $1 Million Grant for New 911 Building

by David Croyle

Armstrong County received official notification Wednesday that it will get $1 million to build a new Emergency Operating Center (EOC).

The new facility will be built on the Armsdale property located along Route 85 in Rayburn Township. The grant is being awarded by the Emergency Management Agency. It is a state agency that channels federal funds to municipalities.

Armstrong County Public Safety Director Randy Brozenick gave details of a million dollar grant to county commissioners at yesterday’s public meeting.

Armstrong County Public Safety Director Randy Brozenick gave details at a public meeting yesterday with the county commissioners.

“We have been trying to relocate EOC for a number of years,” Brozenick said. “We never had the funds.”

Brozenick said in 2009, there were 613 applications for $12 million of grant money. Only 22 projects were funded in 2009.

“This year, there is only $10 million available. We are the ones that will receive funds this year. Obviously we put together a good application,” he said.

The grant will require a 25% match in funds amounting to $250,000. Commissioner Jim Scahill said the matching funds cannot come from FEMA or the Department of Homeland Security. “We will be looking for state money for match.”

According to Scahill, the grant will not cover all the costs of the building project. “We anticipate the total cost of the building will exceed $1.25 million. It will be significant higher than that.” 

Commissioner Patricia Kirkpatrick said it will be part of the county’s efforts to find grant money and allocate a portion of a $10 million general bond approved earlier this year to the project, if necessary.

Brozenick said they hope to break ground in January 2011 and complete the project by July 2012.  “We have 36 months to complete the building according the grant specifications. We want to be able to move equipment in by July 2012.”

Armstrong County Planning and Development Director Rich Palilla said the new building at Armsdale will be built near existing buildings. “The area under consideration is to the right of the existing building between the office building and the recycling center. There are water, sewer, and access roads already there. We are doing an environmental assessment that is nearly complete. The next phase is to request qualifications from architect to begin the design phase.”

Palilla said the construction site will not impact a garden area that is there now. He said the building will be “in the neighborhood of 5,000 square feet.” Instead of creating offices for each person, staff members will work out of cubicles to reduce construction costs.

Brozenick said this will be a public safety building. “There will be different groups in the building, including nineteen emergency support functions as well as the 911 dispatch center.”

Brozenick said it is a centralized approach. “People in the field deal with the issue at hand, but we are able to look at the entire county. If a backhoe is needed in two places, we know that and make that happen so there would not be two groups competing for the same piece of equipment. We arrange for it to happen because we see the whole picture.”

An Emergency Operating Center has been in existence in Armstrong County since the late 1960s.  “There was Rainbow Control down south and EOC up here in the middle part of the county. Parker was handled by Butler Control and New Bethlehem was done by Clarion. Dayton was still dispatching itself until end of the 80s. Then in the early 90’s, Rainbow and EOC were combined to form the current 911 Dispatch Center,” Scahill said.

The current EOC staffs less than twenty people, including office personnel and three individuals in the 911 Dispatch area required to be on duty each shift.

“The Armstrong County Emergency Management Agency runs the EOC.  They are the head body of that organization. 911 is a component of EOC,” Brozenick clarified. “In a disaster, you have to be co-located with a 911 dispatch operation.  EOC is where you make the decisions on the type of response.”

Brozenick said Title 35 – the emergency management act – requires the county to have an EOC. “We have ‘made do’ in the past. This will bring us into compliance to set it up the way it is supposed to be.”

The commissioners hired Mission Critical Partners (MCP) from State College to prepare a feasibility study. MCP specializes in design and technology integration for public safety agencies. Since the feasibility study contract of $16,391.90 will be spent from the county’s general fund, it will be considered part of the county’s funding match required by the grant.

The decision to build the new facility comes at a time when the county is being required to restructure its emergency radio network to comply with new FCC regulations by 2012.

MCP was also contracted at a cost to not exceed $50,000 to assist with planning and implementation of the radio project.

“MCP was contracted to help move the project forward and keep organized,” Brozenick said. “We started it numerous years ago. We are close to getting it moving forward. Our contract with MCP will help us get it all together. The commissioners felt we needed someone to jump in and keep us organized. This will keep us on track.”

Kirkpatrick defended the hiring of MCP. “We must have those much more knowledgeable than we could pay an employee in order to move forward with these projects.”

“The new facility, the radio project, and the broadband project all are pieces of a puzzle.  It is all the pieces that will deliver really good public safety,” Kirkpatrick said. “It is going to be a busy couple of years bringing together a radio system and an operating center.”

Kirkpatrick said the third component referred to as will lay a fiber infrastructure throughout the county. “We are still waiting on notification about our grant for the broadband project. That notification, we assume, will be denied or accepted in the next few weeks. There is a lot of work coming to make sure we have the critical kind of resources that are critical to public safety.” 

Currently the Emergency Operating Center is occupies approximately 2,000 square feet spread out over two floors in the Court House Administration Building in downtown Kittanning. Kirkpatrick said a “needs analysis” will be done after EOC moves out to determine future use of the downtown space.