Posted on Tuesday, 20th April 2010 by Patrick Dorwin
Alderman Bob Donovan is calling for the city to tap into its Emergency Fund to help supply our police officers with hand-held radios that actually work, unlike the new Open Sky radios. This is a plan that has been in the works, but will take two years to supply enough radios for all officers.
Unfortunately, Mayor Tom Barrett is against the use of this fund to immediately supply the radios. He seems to think that a two year delay is acceptable, I do not. We have already seen that these radios do not work at critical moments, like when officers were chasing a subject with a gun inside Washington High School and could not communicate with each other or call out for backup.
OpenSky should have never been made operational, it doesn’t work, but since we are handcuffing our officers with this fiasco, let us at least help them with these new radios, if, and only if, they will work.
Alderman Proposes Using Emergency Fund
Milwaukee–In response to police officers’ complaints about the city’s digital Open Sky radio system, Alderman Bob Donovan is proposing a plan to use the city’s emergency fund to buy each officer a hand held radio.The Milwaukee Police Association says radios sometimes do not work indoors and it puts officers’ lives in danger.
The police department acknowledges problems and had planned to purchase new officer radios over the next two years using money from assets seized from criminals.
Mayor Tom Barrett supports that idea. He does not, however, believe the city’s emergency fund needs to be utilized.
“There is no reason to use taxpayer dollars when money is available from a fund that is financed with proceeds generated by the sale of property once owned by criminals,” the mayor said in a statement.
The radios will cost 1.6 million dollars. MPD already has $900,000 on hand. Donovan wants to provide and additional $700,000 so officers can get the equipment right away.
Donovan and the union argue, this upgrade cannot wait.
“Tell that to the family of an officer who is injured because he or she can’t get on the radio,” he said.
Tags: OpenSky
Posted in Home, Open Sky Radios | Comments (5)
5 Responses to “Donovan wants to use city Emergency Fund to speed up radio acquisition for MPD”
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April 20th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
I wonder if any MPD officers tested these radios, or did the vendor or sales guy just say they will work better.
Maybe Barrett is against the use of this fund right now, because he doesn’t want to have any new radios fail until after the election.
April 21st, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Mayor Tom doesn’t care about the safety and welfare of Milwaukee’s police officers.
Milwaukee’s police officers might want to think about the support they get from city hall.
April 21st, 2010 at 6:03 pm
If any of you MPD officers know anyone in HIDTA, ask them how the county 800 radios work, compared to MPD OpenSky
April 22nd, 2010 at 6:33 pm
No way for me to confirm this yet, but I heard there is no backup if the radio system crashes. Unless maybe they use the old UHF radios in the squads.
April 23rd, 2010 at 1:19 am
MPD OpenSky flashback friday
11/2008 http://bit.ly/doXrGB
5/2009 fast forward to -00:22 http://bit.ly/9PIwfB
Last night Flynn is shooting for late fall now
http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/91877709.html