Recent votes by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Los Angeles City Council to halt at least partial construction of cell sites for the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS) “place LA RICS’s Project development schedule in severe jeopardy,”according to the administrator of LA-RICS’s $154.6 million Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grant.

“Under the terms and conditions of the BTOP award, LA-RICS must complete all project construction activities by the current award period end date of September 30, 2015,” said Arlene Simpson Porter, director of the Grants
Management Division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which handles BTOP grant management for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which April 3 announced suspension of further LA-RICS construction (TRDaily, April 3). “LA-RICS is severely behind schedule.”

Ms. Porter added in her April 3 letter to LA-RICS that in response to a May 2014 “Corrective Action Plan” (CAP) that her division implemented, “LA-RICS supplied a project plan indicating that construction would be complete at over 150 project sites by the end of the award period. To date, construction has been completed at only 15 sites, which indicates the project is substantially lagging behind the timeline needed to successfully complete the Project.”

Ms. Porter added that during a March 3-5 site visit by NTIA and NOAA, “NTIA officials informed LA-RICS that any further delay would jeopardize their Project schedule and the successful completion of the Project.”

She went on to note that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on March 24 voted to halt construction of LA-RICS cell towers at fire stations in the county and at county-owned sites opposed by residents (TRDaily, March 27), while on April 1 the Los Angeles City Council voted to halt LTE cell sites at city police and fire stations and said its LA-RICS representatives should “begin working on alternative locations, commercial structures or alternative and less intrusive technology solutions” (TRDaily, April 2).

The elected officials took the actions after the local firefighters union raised concerns about health concerns of siting towers at fire stations, which prompted some residents to also express health concerns. Some localities also have expressed concern about new towers due for aesthetic reasons as well as the cost of the network.

LA-RICS is one of five early builder projects working with the FirstResponder Network Authority (FirstNet) to provide lessons ahead of the nationwide deployment of a public safety broadband network.

Ms. Porter noted that any BTOP grant funding not spent by Sept. 30 “will be cancelled and no longer available for obligation or expenditure for any purpose absent an act of Congress. Given the Project completion rate to date, the extent to which LA-RICS is behind schedule, and the substantial uncertainty regarding the project timeframe created by the County Board and City Council Resolutions, LA-RICS has not demonstrated compliance with
its plan to successfully complete the Project within the remaining time period.”

The letter said, “To avoid additional enforcement action, up to and including termination of the award, LA-RICS must submit a timely and acceptable response by April 13, 2015 to the corrective action plan (CAP) detailed below.”

The CAP must include “a revised deployment plan consistent with the goals of the Project that can be completed under the terms of the resolutions passed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Los Angeles
City Council and in adherence with LA-RICS current award conditions and timeline by April 13, 2015.”

The letter added, “If NTIA approves the revised deployment plan, which it will review in consultation with FirstNet, LA-RICS must obtain City and County approval, as appropriate, for its revised plan by the last day that it would have to restart its project to be complete by September 30, 2015.”

Ms. Porter also said that LA-RICS must provide (1) “a list of sites that are not impacted by the County Board’s and the City Council’s recent actions,” (2) “a determination as to whether or not any new sites are
required to deliver the benefits of the project,” and (3) “an initial assessment of whether or not any future environmental and historic preservation work will be required for move forward with its proposed deployment schedule.”

Ms. Porter said LA-RICS can incur some expenses during the suspension period, including the costs of responding to requests for information from NOAA and NTIA, complying with additional outreach requests from the Board
of Supervisors and City Council, planning for future site visits, preparing a CAP, securing property funded by the grant, protecting work sites, and halting construction.

LA-RICS Executive Director Pat Mallon told TRDaily that officials “find the NTIA limits reasonable and will work within them to reach an achievable solution.”  Some public officials in Los Angeles said they are concerned about suspension of the LA-RICS buildout.

The suspension “represents a setback that we believe can-and must-be overcome to ensure the safety of Los Angeles County residents,” Sachi Hamai, interim chief executive officer of Los Angeles County, said in a statement released late April 3. “The county remains committed to the concept of a modern, broadband communications system that will enable first-responders across the region to communicate vital information with each other during disasters-even if that means starting with a system more modest than initially envisioned. The stakes for public safety simply are too high to do otherwise.

“To that end, in the hopes of restoring important funding, the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Operational Communications System, or LA-RICS, will submit new plans, with cost and coverage information, to federal officials
by April 13,” Ms. Hamai noted. “Meanwhile, a county delegation-including the Board of Supervisors, sheriff and fire chief-will be traveling to Washington D.C. on April 20 to personally seek support for this crucial communications system.”

Kathryn Barger, chief of staff to Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who introduced the motion to halt construction at fire stations in the county and at county-owned sites opposed by residents, said that her boss “stands behind the action taken by the Board of Supervisors.  The decision made by the NTIA may be viewed negatively by
some, however it provides all of the stakeholders an opportunity to reevaluate the implementation of this project and develop a communications system which supports our first responders without compromising the concerns expressed by the residents and employees.”

Los Angeles officials are hoping to convince Congress to extend the statutory Sept. 30 deadline. In her letter, Ms. Porter said, “If Congress extends the BTOP appropriation period beyond September 30, 2015, NTIA and the NOAA Grants Management Division would consider providing an extension of the award to complete the remaining work.”- Paul Kirby,  paul.kirby@wolterskluwer.com

Courtesy TR Daily