By STEVEN CHURCH
Staff reporter
09/15/99

Lawmakers investigating flaws in Delaware's $52 million emergency radio system said Tuesday they will concentrate on why the network often fails in large buildings.

A state House of Representatives committee decided last week to launch a probe of the system, which goes dead in four areas of the state and does not work at all in most large buildings with thick walls.

When they started work on the project in the early 1990s, state officials didn't design the network of towers and computer-driven radios to work inside. That fact angered some legislators when they learned more about the design earlier this year.

Police and firefighters have said they do much of their work indoors and need the new 800-megahertz radios to work in buildings such as shopping malls and office complexes.

Key lawmakers who set policy on the project thought the state was buying a system that could broadcast inside 95 percent of all buildings in the state, said Rep. Bruce C. Ennis, D-Smyrna.

Now the Legislature needs to find out why the system never was required to work indoors, Ennis said.

"We always thought it was going to be 95 percent in-building coverage," said Ennis, who was on a legislative committee that set policy for the project.

Gov. Tom Carper's spokesman, Anthony Farina, has said political motivations are behind a probe of the project, launched before Carper took office. Farina said some Republican members of the General Assembly may be trying to boost their own political careers, or harm Carper if he decides to run against Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Roth. Carper is a Democrat.

"For nearly a decade, lawmakers have had opportunities to seek information on the 800-megahertz radio system," Farina said. "It seems very strange that, after 10 years as part of the project and ample opportunity to learn more about the system that some suddenly now need additional information, and you have to wonder about the motives."

The House probe has the support of Rep. Robert F. Gilligan, D-Sherwood Park, who leads his party in the House of Representatives. The committee has three Democrats and four Republicans.

Officials with the state Office of Information Services hired radiomaker Motorola Inc. to build a system that would work in 95 percent of all outdoor areas of the state. Motorola was asked to try to provide 90 percent coverage inside buildings in nine areas of the state: Wilmington, Newark, Smyrna, Dover, Milford, Georgetown, Rehoboth Beach, Seaford, and a strip of land from Bethany Beach south to Fenwick Island.

But the state contract said the radio builder would not be held responsible if indoor coverage could not be achieved.

"It's weasel-worded," said Jack Nold, head of Information Services. "It didn't hold them to anything."

But for money allocated for building the system, it was the best the state could do, Nold said.

"The money being spent on the infrastructure was uppermost on everybody's mind," Nold said. "We knew that in-building coverage was going to demand more towers than we were ever assuming we would fund. If anybody thought that we could pay for 95 percent in-street coverage and also get 95 percent in-building coverage, that was wishful thinking."

After the system was completed last year, police officers and firefighters discovered that the radio system would often go dead in five general areas.

Eventually state officials persuaded Motorola officials to fix the problem areas.

Last week the first repair was completed in Rehoboth Beach. Motorola engineers began work on a dead zone in Hartly last week also.

In heavily populated New Castle County, which has the three other dead zones, state officials still are trying to figure out how to repair the flaws.

The House Government Accountability Committee plans to hold its first meeting Oct. 6 in Dover. Chairwoman Stephanie A. Ulbrich said the committee should have a written report by January when the General Assembly comes back into regular session.