* Replacing Heather Massender during her absence.

The Board welcomed Superintendent Richard Lafortune as the newly appointed Police representative on the Board. The Board also welcomed A/Inspector Ty Cameron in his new capacity as the 9-1-1 Bureau Manager and Staff Sergeant Peter Couillard, who replaced Gary Nelson in his former capacity at the OCRPS.

CONFIRMATION OF MINUTES

CARRIED

1. 9-1-1 ADVISORY COMMITTEE - DRAFT MINUTES

- Co-ordinator, 9-1-1 Advisory Committee report dated 3 May 99

With respect to the Sub-Committee on Civic Addressing, Councillor Cantin indicated this group will be meeting on 27 May to discuss the issues. Chair Kemp made reference to a letter he received from John Moser at the City of Ottawa, requesting a city representative on the sub-committee. The co-ordinator confirmed that Don Brousseau of the City’s Planning Branch would assume that role.

RECEIVED

2. DUPLICATE CIVIC ADDRESSING - RIVER ROAD IN THE

TOWNSHIP OF OSGOODE/SOUTH GOWER - UPDATE  

The Board acknowledged the letter dated 24 March 1999 from the Township of Osgoode to the Township of North Grenville, relating a meeting with Fire Chief Bennett and representatives from both townships to discuss this matter. The Board was satisfied this issue has now been resolved.

CARRIED

Councillor Cantin indicated that the committee established to review this document have met twice and some updates have been made. The Manual is currently in the process of being put into electronic format and the committee anticipates reporting back to the Board and the Advisory Committee in the fall.

Reference was made to the relationship between the Joint Powers Agreement and the Training Manual and it was suggested that there may be sections of the Agreement that will have to be reviewed, in conjunction with the updating of the Manual. Councillor Cantin stated it has been five years since the Agreement was drawn up and signed and agreed there have been many changes since that time. He confirmed that the sub-committee wants to ensure the Training Manual does not conflict with the Agreement.

It was suggested that those areas of the document that should be revised should be forwarded to Geoff Cantello of the Legal Department for comment. The sub-committee should also examine the Joint Powers Agreement and identify those areas which Legal staff should review.

Councillor Cantin noted the second section of the Training Manual deals specifically with equipment and he suggested a letter be sent to L. Jenkins of Bell, with a request that she update that section accordingly. He noted that some of it is Regional equipment and there is a need to ensure that equipment is referenced in the Manual. Also, he remarked on the fact that the pagination in the Manual was different from agency to agency and suggested the revised document be referred to by sections so that any revisions that have to be made in future will not upset the page numbering of the entire document.

The Board agreed the Manual would be brought back to the Advisory Committee in September for review and their recommendations and comments then could be submitted to the Board.

5. ALTERNATE ROUTING FOR 9-1-1

- Co-ordinator, 9-1-1 Management Board report dated 3 May 99

H. Murphy advised that the alternate routing for the 9-1-1 back-up centre has been installed and will be tested in approximately one month. He advised that from Bell’s perspective, this alternate routing is now complete. In response to questions raised, he confirmed that Randall can still be used as the back-up site and there would be no additional costs to keep that site active.

Chair Kemp acknowledged that following the last meeting to discuss this issue, Bell had forwarded the final costs to Board members which were upwards of $40,000 which was considerably higher than what this solution was. He acknowledged that Board members discussed the issue following the meeting and decided to go with the alternate routing at a cost of approximately $9000 plus some monthly charges for lines. H. Murphy agreed to advise the Board with respect to the test results.

Greg Geddes, Director, Year 2000 Program distributed copies of his brief entitled: "Region of Ottawa-Carleton - Extract from Year 2000 Program Report for the First Quarter of 1999". He indicated that the message has been conveyed to the public that this is the highest priority with respect to Y2K compliance. Bell had advised that they will be going with Toronto for testing and have invited staff to see how that works. He indicated they would request that they add some additional equipment that is not in the Toronto area. Consequently, staff have had to revisit their strategy for testing the system and have determined that they cannot do any laboratable testing in Ottawa-Carleton; therefore, staff will examine what Bell does in metro-Toronto. He indicated they would try to do a proper audit of what the end-to-end testing should prove and it is hoped that this will be complete by the end of June. He indicated staff would report back to the Board in the fall with a full report on their findings. He indicated that they are also going to try and test the 9-1-1 back-up centre at 111 Lisgar Street as part of preparations for 2000 and this should occur prior to 31 December.

RECEIVED

Councillor Cantin informed the Board that he had received very positive feedback following a 9-1-1 call to ambulance. Apparently, at a meeting of the Regional Fire Chief, one of their employees had symptoms of a heart attack. The call to 9-1-1 was responded to efficiently and he acknowledged that they did a good job calming the victim.

Wireless Conference

Chair Kemp referred to the Canadian Wireless Conference to be held next month and a letter he received from the Telecomunications Association referring to the Education Session at its annual convention to discuss the latest in location technology and approaches to delivering wireless 9-1-1 information. The Chair was seeking assurance questioned whether the A/Inspector will be able to obtain that information from that session and distribute it to Board members.

Ssgt. Couillard added that the difficulties experienced with 9-1-1 and cell phones is happening world-wide and is one of the issues to be discussed at the upcoming NENA conference. T. Cameron agreed to get the necessary information so the Board can learn what technology exists.

Councillor Cantin referred to Item 3 of today’s agenda and suggested that if phone companies agree to include an insert in their phone bills about the impact of 9-1-1 and cell phones, it might be helpful if someone from the Bureau could review the wording of the insert to ensure it includes what needs to be said. Chair Kemp suggested the letter can made some suggestions about what should be said. R. Lafortune questioned what the Board expects out of this initiative and the councillor stated that when a call is made to 9-1-1, there should be information that the individual should automatically provide to the call-taker.

Chair Kemp was hesitant to develop the exact wording because it could cause conflicts with wording at other levels. While he agreed with the councillors intent, he suggested it might be best to encourage the phone companies to alert their subscribers to the difficulties of call 9-1-1 from cell phones and provide those companies with the name and number of someone at the Bureau who could provide the appropriate wording, if they so choose to do so.

Bureau Manager’s Report

Following an incident in Belleville similar to the one that happened in the Jock River last November, Ssgt. Couillard advised that that city has identified similar problems Ottawa-Carleton has with respect to correctly routing calls. On a related note, he commended Fire Chiefs Hawkins and Gervais for bringing their staff to the Bureau recently, where they spent an afternoon interacting with the 9-1-1 operators and getting a better understanding of how calls are dispatched.

Three weeks ago there were 14 new communications staff who will be trained as 9-1-1 operators and one of the aspect identified in their training package is a need to identify resources available to them. Deputy Chief Smith from the Ottawa Fire Department has provided some valuable information on what the fire departments can do, et cetera and he emphasized the benefits of this interaction between Bureau staff and emergency agencies.

R. Lafortune recalled that in the past call-takers were trained for six months; now there is five-weeks of classroom training during which time all emergency agencies come in and tell the call-takers-in-training what they do. He added that before these operators are in place, they have to handle mock calls in order to better prepare them for the real thing.

A/Inspector Cameron advised there will be a graduation ceremony for 9-1-1 operators at the Police Club on Catherine Street on 21 May and members of the Board are invited to attend. Ssgt. Couillard added that ultimately those people will be 9-1-1 call takers and part of their training is to visit ambulance dispatch as well. He conveyed his appreciation for the co-operation between the Bureau and ambulance in this regard. Chair Kemp believed this type of co-ordination and co-operation was what Chief Powers was looking for following the incident in the Jock River.

Children’s Awards

R. Maxwell reminded members that the Children’s Awards should take place at the next meeting or at least before the end of the year.

8 October 1999

ADJOURNMENT