County says MARCS will be interoperable with radios it replaced when system goes live

The Multi-Agency Radio Communications System will allow all Lorain County first responders to talk to each other regardless of what kind of radios they have, the county official in charge of testing the system said. MARCS, as it is known, passed four separate coverage and quality tests over the past six months, said Jeff Young, interim director of the county Emergency Management Agency and Lorain County government's lead on the project. "It's up. It's running. It's been tested. It's ready to go," said Young, a veteran first responder and former county 911 director. Sheriff Jack Hall's agency will get the new system first, starting next week. By that time it will have been more than two and a half years since county commissioners chose MARCS, and more than three years since they rejected the L3Harris radio system backed by Cleveland Communications Inc., or CCI, of Parma. MARCS will go live in a first responder community that has largely chosen L3Harris technology. The former chief of the Sheffield Fire Department, Young said he was a critic of MARCS and "a big CCI fan." That was until he saw MARCS' capabilities tested in Lorain County. Now "I couldn't be more pleased" with MARCS, Young said. Backed by Motorola technology and engineers, MARCS signals operate off 10 towers spread throughout the county with multiple backup systems, he said. Calling a MARCS radio user from an L3Harris radio is as simple as the flip of a switch in some cases, or updating programming. Young said MARCS was required to have 95 percent coverage in Lorain County to pass road, building, "tile" and foliage testing. Road testing is like it sounds: Young and others drove Lorain County roads, trying to make the radios fail to get a signal. Building testing involved going into buildings — including 90 schools in Lorain County — and trying to get a signal. Critics of MARCS said it works well outdoors, but not indoors where police officers and firefighters might need to make an emergency call. Boosting a MARCS signal indoors would require expensive bidirectional antennas, or BDAs, to be installed in schools and other large buildings, they said. Young said that issue was resolved when it came to schools. The MARCS contract provided for for BDAs to be installed at no additional cost in five Lorain County school buildings in where they were needed, he said. "Tile" testing involved dividing Lorain County up into half-mile square "tiles" and testing MARCS in each one in turn. Young said he tested half of them himself with 99.75 percent signal coverage. Then there was leaf testing: Foliage can affect radio signals, and that testing had to be postponed from winter when there are no leaves to earlier this month, Young said. "I thought it was stupid but it's true, " Young said of the foliage testing — with research available on the effects. He and a Motorola engineer drove down a low section of Neff Road in Grafton Township. Surrounded by leafy trees, they "tried to make (the radio) not work" but couldn't, Young said. "We definitely heard the transmission from under all those trees on Neff Road," he said. For agencies that might want to switch from legacy VHF radios to MARCS, Deputy County Administrator Karen Perkins said commissioners have set aside $200,000 to provide interest-free loans to help pay for new equipment or to retrofit existing equipment. Agencies would have 12 months to pay back loans up to $25,000 and 24 months to pay back loans more than$25,000. Applications with detailed, itemized lists of needs and estimated costs should be sent to Young at jyoung@loraincounty.us. The state MARCS office also offers loaner radios and grants. "This is the best thing I've seen for Lorain County in a long time," Young said. "I know what we built. I'm very proud of it. The No. 1 thing is, we do what's best for the residents of Lorain County." All five fire departments in the so-called "five cities" area of Lorain County, composed of Avon, Avon Lake, Sheffield Lake and North Ridgeville and the village of Sheffield, use L3Harris radios, as do the Elyria fire and police departments, Lorain Fire Department and others. Acting Avon Lake Fire Chief Steve Peter said his agency is happy with its L3Harris equipment and CCI's service, so there's "no reason for us to change" to MARCS. He said the two systems should be interoperable in Lorain County with a flip of a switch, like they are when his firefighters assist with emergencies in Westlake or Bay Village in neighboring Cuyahoga County. Technology has made things easier. It's the politics around the CCI/L3Harris-MARCS debate that complicated matters, he said. "It shouldn't be too hard to make everyone be able to talk on the radio," Peter said. Using pandemic recovery funds, former county commissioners Matt Lundy and Michelle Hung awarded CCI a $7.7 million contract in December 2022 to provide L3Harris radios to Lorain County first responders. Commissioner David Moore was not present at that meeting. The following month, Moore and Jeff Riddell, who replaced Lundy, rescinded the contract over Hung's objection. Moore and Riddell then awarded MARCS and Motorola a $13.9 million contract in late 2023, again over Hung's objection. Moore has estimated Lorain County's MARCS project cost a total of $28 million, with the system to be turned over to state oversight and control when completed. Both decisions went against the preference of nearly every fire chief and police chief in the county, then-county sheriff Phil Stammitti, his deputies union and many elected officials. Without providing evidence, Moore and Riddell alleged that the contract was improperly steered to CCI. Two criminal investigations, including one conducted by state auditors at Moore's request, found no evidence of wrongdoing. Moore also said first responders would be able to use whatever radios they wanted to talk on MARCS when it was done. CCI is suing Lorain County in federal court for breach of contract. Under an agreement oveseen by a federal judge, CCI will remove its remaining equipment from the county-owned tower at the 911 Center on Burns Road in Elyria starting today. Sheriff Jack Hall also is suing commissioners for greater control of Lorain County 911. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.