By Amanda Hilliard, Brian Hobson, Ed Parkinson and Vicki Lee
California is famous for its beaches, national parks, and being home to the entertainment industry and Silicon Valley-based tech companies, among other things. When it comes to the nationwide public safety broadband network, the state is well known for its outreach campaign to enhance coordination and awareness of the network among the state’s 200,000 first responders.
Since mid-July, California has held four town hall events throughout the state to gather information from local first responders and to discuss how the network can revolutionize their mobile communications capabilities. The town halls have brought together hundreds of fire and EMS personnel, law enforcement officials, and other public safety disciplines to share information and coordinate planning for the wireless broadband network.
Karen Wong, who is California’s single point of contact (SPOC) for FirstNet, says there are more than 2,000 public safety agencies and 109 tribes in California. The state’s diverse and expansive public safety community serves as a key driver for California’s grassroots approach to the network. “It is crucial for local participation in the California planning efforts to ensure the network meets their unique public safety requirements,” says Karen who is the Assistant Director of Public Safety Communications at the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES).
In addition to public safety and state, local, and tribal representation, FirstNet’s user advocacy team has participated in all of the California town halls to date. FirstNet Director of Outreach Amanda Hilliard presented at the first meeting in July; Brian Hobson, State Plans Technical Lead, attend the August meeting; and more recently, Vicki Lee and Ed Parkinson participated in the September town halls held in Fairfield and Santa Ana, respectively. Vicki is the Association Manager, and Ed is Director of Government Relations.
As part of their presentations, both Vicki and Ed provided updates on recent FirstNet developments, including the Request for Information (RFI) with draft statement of objectives (SOO) and the Public Notice and Comment. They also explained to attendees how the responses to those items would help shape FirstNet’s approach to building the network. In addition, they encouraged town hall participants to submit feedback on the RFI and public notice.
Vicki and Ed also discussed the state consultation process and reviewed key findings from the initial state consultation meetings held in Maryland and Minnesota. Both the Santa Ana and Fairfield town halls generated dialogue around next steps regarding future FirstNet timelines, as well as key network issues, such as priority and preemption and mobile device management, and land mobile radio (LMR) systems.
In addition to hosting these events around the state, the Cal OES is also posting several videos from the town halls on the CA Public Safety Communications (PSC) YouTube channel for interested stakeholders. Thanks to Karen and the California team for inviting FirstNet to the town halls.
-Amanda, Brian, Ed, and Vicki
