Southold Police Department headquarters will be getting a new phone system a year earlier than officials anticipated.
The county pushed up the date of the new 911 system installation, IT director Lloyd Reisenberg explained to the town board during yesterday’s work session. The county was going to do the upgrade in 2017, but it’s been pushed up to this year and is now scheduled to get underway the end of next month, he said.
Reisenberg explained that it is much less expensive for the town to upgrade its phone system simultaneously with the county’s 911 upgrade, because the county is bearing the cost of installing the new interface.
“If we don’t do it now then when we do it the interface between the phone system and the 911 will have to be redone and it will be on our dime,” Reisenberg said.
The new phone system comes with a $14,500 price tage, but the town will no longer have to pay Optimum Lightpath fees for the existing system in the police headquarters, which currently costs $5,700 per year, Reisenberg said. the initial purchase and installation costs will be recouped within a few years.
The town will save on system maintenance, too, since the new system is “like a server,” he said, “with a little training, my office can handle it.”
The new phone system at police headquarters will be the same one that’s already planned for the human resource center and the highway department — which Reisenberg is hoping to have installed for town hall next year.
“We’ll be able to tie them all together so there will be three-digit dialing among all the buildings and call forwarding,” Reisenberg said.
The vendor has been awarded a state bid, so the town can proceed quickly to get the system installed in time for the connection to the new 911 interface, he said.
While the project was not in the 2016 budget, the town is transferring
In other action yesterday, the town board:
- made permanent the appointment of town engineer Michael Collins, who was provisionally appointed to the position on Dec. 2;
- acknowledged the intent to retire of longtime ZBA secretary Vicki Toth, effective April 23;
- authorized the town clerk to advertise the position of ZBA secretary;
- retained attorney Frank Isler as special counsel to the Zoning Board of Appeals regarding the applications of Laurie Bloom and Lisa Cradit;
- approved the following special events
- Earth Day Celebration of the Group for the East End on April 23 at the Downs Farm Preserve;
- Back to the Bays 5K, sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension on May 14;
- Orient Memorial Day Parade, sponsored by Orient Fire Department on May 30;
- Southold 4th of July Parade on Main Road in Southold on July 4;
- Scheduled public hearings on May 3 (4:30 p.m. meeting time) for code amendments:
- authorizing the code enforcement officer to issue “stop work” orders;
- replacing “special projects coordinator” with “government liaison officer” in the “Zoning” and “Housing Fund” chapters of the town code, in connection with the transfer of responsibilities regarding affordable housing.
