Cochise County and the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office have been in the process of upgrading communications equipment throughout the county, mainly through private funding.

The project thus far has seen the purchase of new dispatch consoles, portable radios, mobile radios and infrastructure for the countywide VHF radio backbone. Currently the dispatch positions in the Sheriff’s Office have been installed, the portable radios have been issued and the mobile radios are in the process of being installed in the vehicles. There are some infrastructure improvements being made that will allow the initiation of the VHF infrastructure to begin. This project is a partnership with Sierra Vista PD.

The next phase of the project is to install this 700 MHz trunked system. This system will not only further improve the communications throughout the county but will allow the Cochise County system to connect with other trunked systems throughout the state. Simply put, our deputies or detention officers will be able to pick up their radio microphone, in the Phoenix area for example, and talk back to the Sheriff’s Office dispatch. This system will also allow other trunked system users to utilize our system to talk throughout the majority of the state. We also anticipate, although it is no guarantee, that other agencies may come onboard with our state of the art system.

Funding has also been donated which will equip our 21 Cochise County schools and some of the local ranchers with portable radios. These radios will enable the schools to contact the Sheriff’s Office directly when emergencies occur and also for the ranchers to contact the Sheriff’s Office when other means of communication are not available in the more rural areas.

There are three interrelated agreements for the Board to consider, and two for the Board to approve.  The first to consider is the Communications System Agreement (CSA) between Motorola and the Howard G. Buffett Foundation for the purchase of the equipment.  The second is an assignment/grant agreement, in which the Foundation grants/assigns its rights to the equipment and  the CSA to the County.  The third is the Performance Systems Agreement (PSA) between Motorola and the County, which is the contract for installing the equipment.

Under the PSA, Motorola provides the County with a one year warranty from the date the system is accepted after installation.
 

The Sheriff’s Office, Cochise County IT and Motorola Inc will continue with the upgrade to our countywide communications system.

The final upgrade to the communications system will not be accomplished, leaving rural communications in a deficient state of operation.