News & Announcements

The Draft Design Report for the Route 9P over Saratoga Lake Outlet Bridge Project is currently available for review. In addition, a Public Hearing has been scheduled for Thursday, July 26, 2007 at the Saratoga Springs Public Library. An Open House will begin at 5:30 pm with Department representatives available to answer questions followed by the Hearing at 6:30 pm. Click here to view/download the hearing notice for additional details or visit the project website at https://www.nysdot.gov/portal/page/portal/regional-offices/region1/projects/route-9p. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Erica Gundrum, Project Manager, at (518) 388-0225.

Director of Emergency Services Paul Lent and Hadley Supervisor Jeff Trottier (Chairman of Public Safety) attended a recent County Fire Officers meeting and presented an update on recent County radio system developments. Paul discussed the following using a Power Point presentation which you can view or download by clicking here. The key points of the presentation are: Spruce mountain site requires clean up of existing antennas and development of quarterly preventative maintenance program, proposed taking ownership of an existing 58X70 building and 180 ft tower owned by National Grid to replace present tower. Will need 14 new antennae with 2800 feet of new coax to minimize cutover time, structural capacity of new tower has been checked and proposed loading is okay, some necessary electrical work needed at site has been completed. Existing low and high band paging planned to convert to digital paging system. New CAD system is being installed and tested. Blue Wing continues work with FCC for guidance on the new radio system. A guestimate by Paul is 24 months until changing over to new pager/radio system. Proposed radio system will need 13 towers – new sites and existing sites being investigated include Stillwater old radar base, Willard, Corinth HS, Bald Mountain, and Halfmoon. Our old analog radio system will be replaced with a new microwave system. A user count of 1000 was tabulated for mobile and portable units throughout the County. The new radio system will use 700-800 MHz frequency very close to that used by Nextel with higher gain antennae. Negotiations continue in pursuing necessary APA permits and easements as well as FCC licensing. Inquiries have been received from cellular companies to consider co-lease. Costs for the new radio system are estimated at 11 to 15 million dollars. What’s next: technology test bed with phased implementation to be completed in 24 to 36 months. Remaining issues: microwave system, statewide wireless network, FCC licenses, user input, detailed engineering to be completed. Price of new high band digital pager presently about $450 and is only available from Motorola.

In a May 30th letter to all ambulance agencies, County EMS Coordinator Mike McEvoy announced plans to amend the Mutual Aid Plan to incorporate crew confirmation in compliance with a REMAC advisory on Agency Response Parameters. McEvoy believes the REMAC advisory highlights a weakness in the present Saratoga County EMS Mutual Aid Plan. Although agencies are able to comply with the directive under the present MA Plan, adding crew confirmation to the existing alerting system would assure that any response time gaps are covered automatically. Click here for a copy of the memo mailed to all agencies.

On Thursday, May 1st, a meeting to review upgrades and changes to the Saratoga County EMS Radio system will be held at the Fire Training Center, beginning at 7:00 PM. All ambulance agencies are strongly encouraged to send at least one representative. Any interested EMS providers are also welcome and encouraged to attend. Click here for a posting announcing the meeting. Upcoming plans by DOH to distribute Atropine autoinjector pens to all agencies will also be discussed.

The 2007 Special Olympic New York Summer Games will be held at SUNY Albany June 14-16, 2007. Volunteers are needed for a variety of events. Click here for a copy of the Volunteer Recruitment letter, download a schedule of events with projected EMS needs, and click here for a volunteer application form.