PURPOSE

Staff is requesting that City Council consider appointing a City Council Member as liaison to the Interagency Communications Interoperability System (ICIS).

BACKGROUND

In October 2003, the City of Burbank joined with several other cities including Glendale as founding members of the ICIS Joint Powers Agreement (ICIS JPA). Currently, the cities of Beverly Hills, Burbank, Culver City, Glendale, Montebello, Pomona, and Torrance are members of the ICIS JPA. Together, the member cities represent more than 700,000 residents and thousands of businesses.

ICIS is the technical buzzword for seamless radio communications, which enables first responders (police, fire, emergency medical) to quickly communicate with each other across jurisdictional boundaries. The ICIS JPA provides a governance structure through which this modern radio infrastructure may be funded, managed, and maintained for the benefit of all the participants. Collectively, the ICIS member cities have invested more than $56 million in local funding, and are actively seeking outside sources of funding to further expand ICIS in the Los Angeles region.  

In 2004, ICIS received $0.5 million from the federal Commerce-Justice-State Appropriations Bill for 2005. Also last year, the Los Angeles Fire Chiefs Association awarded the City of Glendale $2.0 million in grant funds to lead communications projects on their behalf and the behalf of the Verdugo Communications Center. These funds will also help to expand ICIS. However, the ICIS Technical Committee estimates that a minimum of $16.3 million over four federal funding cycles is needed to expand ICIS throughout Southern California.  

ANALYSIS

In pursuing outside funding, the ICIS member cities have sent delegations to Washington, D.C. to meet with legislators, committee and professional staff, and regulatory agencies like the Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security. ICIS delegations have also traveled to Sacramento to meet with state legislators and representatives from the state Office of Homeland Security, Department of General Services, and the Office of Emergency Services. However, ICIS delegations will carry more clout in Washington D.C. and Sacramento if they include locally elected officials.

Burbank staff is actively involved in the ICIS Governance Board, the Technical Committee and Legislative Sub-Committee, and can easily facilitate policy participation by a Burbank City Council liaison. Such participation would position a City Council liaison to be a strong ICIS advocate to state and federal legislators.

A related item on tonight�s agenda is a Joint Resolution of the City Councils of each ICIS JPA member city that extols the concept and importance of the ICIS organization. The ICIS Governance Board believes that this is yet another way to make the support of locally elected officials more visible to those deciding state and federal grant funding.

FISCAL IMPACT

The City Council liaison may need to travel to Sacramento or Washington D.C. for several days once or twice a year, at a total cost of less than $10,000. (This assumes that none of these trips could be combined with trips that the Council may already have scheduled to these cities.)   There will be little cost associated with local travel, such as ICIS meetings at Glendale. Travel funding would come from Fund 535, the internal service fund for the City�s radios and telephones.

RECOMMENDATION

Staff recommends that the City Council appoint one City Council Member as a liaison to ICIS that will participate in ICIS-related matters at the federal, state, and local levels.

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