Supporters of St. Louis County emergency communication sales tax get organized
Mange
Supporters of a 0.1-cent sales tax for emergency communications have built their campaign organization for the Nov. 3 election in St. Louis County.
The tax would raise $13.6 million a year to finance a program that would include:
> An $80 million a countywide emergency communications system.
> The spending of $10 million for equipment to allow police and fire dispatchers to know the location of callers using cell phones. The new system would meet a federal requirement that operators of emergency communications system reduce their radio bandwidths by Dec. 31, 2012.
> A $10 million upgrade to the county’s siren system.
The county council put the proposal on the November ballot last spring, well before the uproar about having a vote on the same day on banning smoking in indoor public areas.
While supporters and opponents of a smoking ban vehemently debated, backers of the sales tax organized a campaign committee, conducted a poll, obtained consultants and began raising money. It has set up a website, www.citizensfore911.org.
Sales tax supporters also obtained backing from mayors and police and fire chiefs, former County Councilman Skip Mange, chairman of the sales tax committee, said. Supporters are asking the county council and municipal council members, aldermen and trustees to pass resolutions urging the public to find out about the proposal.
The supporters are satisfying the concerns of county officials who worried that supporters would not develop a campaign that could pass the proposal.
About a month ago pollster Terry Jones conducted a poll for the campaign committee. One thing the poll found is that some voters who came to the polls because of the smoking ban issue would vote for the sales tax, slightly helping the emergency communications system proposal.
The sales tax committee has three consultants – Paul Zemitzsch of Sequel LLC who works with Republicans, Joyce Aboussie of Aboussie and Associates who works with Democrats and Mike Kelley of the Kelley Group who works with labor unions.
Mange said, “We are trying to keep this campaign very non-partisan.”
The campaign, he said, “has not had great success raising money.” The money it has will determine what the campaign committee can do, he said.
The committee has not yet talked about contributions with Civic Progress, the organization of major banks and businesses, or the Regional Business Council, the group of middle-sized businesses.
A grass roots campaign in local communities will be very important in getting the sales tax passed, he said.
Mange and the website stressed the the spending of $10 million to upgrade the 28 emergency 911 centers in the county so dispatchers would know the location of callers using cell phones. Dispatchers have equipment to pinpoint people using landline phones, but now 70 percent of their calls come by cell phone, Mange said. He noted that many people involved in accidents are not aware of their exact location. The campaign has a slogan: “If we cannot find you, we cannot save you.”
The campaign says it needs to spend $80 million for radios, towers and computer equipment so all emergency personnel cannot talk to each other by radios. At major accidents or fires, responders from various departments send runners to each other to learn what is going on and what they need to do.
The campaign points to the fatal crash on July 15 of last year of an 18-wheel truck into stalled traffic in the right-hand lane of eastbound Highway 40 traffic just west of Interstate 270. First responders could see St. John’s Mercy and Missouri Baptist medical centers, but they could not communicate with them, Mange and the campaign said.
The county has 213 emergency sirens – the ones people hear at 11 a.m. on the first Monday of the month, Mange noted. Eight percent of them don’t work and the county needs 60 additional sirens to cover the entire county, particularly areas with substantial development in the last 20 years, the campaign committee said. Currently, the sirens blare throughout the county when only a part of the county needs a warning, Mange said. The $10 million upgrade would put the sirens on a digital system, allowing operators to activate only those where they are needed, he said.
A county resident purchasing a $20,000 vehicle would pay an additional $20 in sales tax if the proposal passes.
Voters rejected last November a 1.85-cent countywide use tax which included money for the communications system. In April, voters in Jefferson County approved a half-cent sales tax that includes money for a communications system that would be compatible with the one for St. Louis County. In August St. Charles County voters approved a .05-cent sales tax for an emergency communications system.
Maybe St. Louis County can get the stimulus money that went to ACORN illegally since they are a political organization now that the Census Bureau has kicked them out of working on the census.
I will vote against any new taxes on anything. Period. Claire Bear - go get us some of that there stimulus monies.
No new taxes. If the county needs to spend money on this, shift the money out of something else.
> First responders could see St. John’s Mercy and Missouri Baptist medical centers,
> but they could not communicate with them, Mange and the campaign said.
How stupid do these people think we are? There’s already a communication network in place which allows anyone to communicate with these hospitals from anywhere in the region. It’s called a cell phone.
No. No. No. No. No.
St. Chuck just passed this. St. louis county’s turn. I don’t understand why stimulus money is not used…and also, why Homeland Security grants that were given to every city were not used on a project of this size….instead, everyone got several new fire trucks. If this was so important to safety, don’t you think they should have tackled this first?
This committee is going to be VERY disappointed in the outcome Nov. 3. One, the no smoking bill stands a good chance to be defeated because the only organized support it has is from the casinos, who aren’t going to be running a vote yes campaign. Couldn’t you just see and hear, “hey voters, you should ban smoking everywhere, but by the way, if you do smoke, come to us ’cause it’ll be legal.” It ain’t gonna happen.
Plus, a sales tax proposal on the ballot in a recession? You saw what happened to the Metro tax. And anti tax folks are organized and ready to campaign against it.
When I heard this story over the weekend, I couldn’t believe someone thought increasing taxes at this time is a good idea. Then I came to my senses. I then believed it because those in charge have no sense.
I want everthing and I don’t want to pay for it! Everybody wants something for nothing;we always want to have the other guy pay for it; and we can do anything if we just “cut the fat” from the budget - as long as we cut what I don’t care about!
I, for one, believe the police officers and firefighters who tell that current radio systems are not adequate for day-to-day use much less for a major disaster. When a major event does occur, existing systems do not let offices from multiple jurisdications talk or coordinate responses which means less effective responses, a waste of resources and less safety for the officers and general public. I want to know whether I am in Concord Village, Chesterfield or Florissant that the police and fire personnel responding to my call for help can be reached and have the communication tools for the safety of myself and my family.
To the comment “use cell phones”… get real. Cell phone towers and systems are not secure, are most likely to fail in bad weather and are easily overwhelmed by multiple callers during major events. When sitting in the daily traffic slowdown on southbound 270, the usual cell phone response is “all circuits are busy”.
One of the issues this proposition addresses is how to handle 911 calls received from your cell phone which currently cannot be quickly or accurately identified as to location.
I appreciate the job that the police and firefighters to to protect me and my family. I want to make sure they have the tools to do so both for my safety and theirs.
everyone is tr
A couple of facts… 1) There is no stimulus money for this system, NONE. The State of Missouri got the $$$ and chose to spend it on a system for the highway patrol to communicate in cornfields not in urban areas. 2) Every police, fire and EMS agency will have to update their radio systems…everybody can do it individually and pay a lot more for a bunch of small systems that CAN’T talk to one another or we can come together and buy a system that works and get huge volume discount. 3) Police agencies can’t communicate effectively today during a car chase….. if there is large scale emergency, forget about it we are toast…
This obtains pretty basic public safety improvements that the telephone industry has failed to provide. While I am not thrilled with any new tax, locating a cell phone 911 call is absolutely essential, as are local area emergency sirens and alert systems. The radios will have to be switched out in 2012 due to FCC mandate and we need to make sure that the new system provides 911 support for the cell phones we all carry.
I support this.
The passage of Prop E911 on November 3rd is critical to the residents, businesses, and first responders in St. Louis County. Our current communication system does not meet the requirements set forth by the FCC that will take effect in just a few years and it does not serve our citizens and first responders in an effective manner. We have two choices – fix it together as a County, or fix it separately as dozens of individual police and fire agencies.
Complying with the FCC mandate separately will cost tens of millions of dollars and will do nothing to address the fact that 911 dispatchers cannot locate the origination of cell phone calls placed in emergencies. Currently, a majority of emergency calls received by these dispatch centers are placed on cell phones. As Americans continue to become more dependent on cell service, the number of emergency 911 calls placed on cell phones will escalate significantly.
Further, fixing it separately will not build a system that allows emergency personnel to communicate with one another in an effective manner. The inability of emergency personnel to simply speak to other first responders on an emergency incident is one of the most pressing safety concerns of every line level fire fighter and police officer across the country and in St. Louis County.
This is not an issue that can be ignored. It cannot be fixed with stimulus money, and it cannot be addressed by simply reallocating funds. Voters in St. Louis County have an opportunity to build an efficient, modern, effective emergency communication system by passing Prop E911. Failing to do so will not make the antiquated system with which we currently operate go away, nor will it address the upcoming FCC mandate.
Because of these, and many more reasons, on behalf of the fire fighters, paramedics, EMT’s, and emergency dispatchers of St. Louis County I strongly encourage you to vote “Yes” on Prop E911 on November 3rd!
Kurt Becker
District Vice President
Professional Fire Fighters of Eastern Missouri
IAFF Local 2665