should be stricken and said there were people online who could answer their operational
questions.
Member Rauter went through the statute references that should be updated. He said there
were relationship questions between STARCOM and the County that were troublesome
to him. What he said was most problematic was the allowance of encrypted talk groups
to be patched to non-encrypted talk groups. He said under best practices, that is a
complete no-no. He reviewed his other notes, which included the Motorola grade of
service, policy 911-005.2 which he had not yet reviewed and did not know how it
affected this policy, he said that there was no Illinois Tactical plan and no such thing as
the ITTF template, and that talk groups 4A and 4B were being renamed and re-purposed
and therefore not appropriate based on the State's plans. Member Rauter said he was
confused that some members of the PAC said it was reviewed whereas others said it was
not, and that maybe they were not present on Monday, but that the policy seems rushed
and needs to be re-written.
Chairman Schwarze asked Chief Rivas to comment. PAC Member Rivas said they had
looked at the policy for some time and that when it comes to encryption, DuPage needs a
mechanism to talk with their Cook County brethren and for saturation patrols. He said
that in real time events, they are seeing units showing up from various agencies and need
a mechanism to communicate safely and effectively with departments that do not have
encryption.
Ms. Zerwin said that in regard to the naming conventions mentioned by Member Rauter,
DuPage is in a state of flux. There is only ADP encryption active on certain talk groups
today, that main talk groups are currently not encrypted. In the radio template today, the
template has the talk groups listed as ITTF talk groups. So, the policy is consistent with
the template until the naming conventions are changed to align with SWIT. She said
when all the changes are made and the intent is to bring the talk group policy to the
Board, there would be language to allow staff to marry up the name changes. She said
this policy has been in place and while there are statute references to clean up, the policy
is already active. Ms. Zerwin said the policy could be tabled while the scrivener's errors
are corrected but further discussion would be up to the PAC and MERIT as it is their
policy as to how they want to grant access. She said this came to the board because the
previous MERIT Executive Committee had greater restrictions on encryption within the
DEDIR System. The current committee would like, as the language reflects, anyone who
is a member of MERIT have access to the MERIT talk groups and encryption. Ms.
Zerwin said the encryption discussion has been a fluid conversation among the police and
fire service and how is the fire service allowed to communicate and have encryption
desired by the police. The caveat in the policy is that if you are not a DEDIRS member,
such as Naperville, and are a MERIT member, only those assigned to MERIT would have
access to the MERIT talk groups on both the police and only the fire personnel assigned
to MERIT. She concluded saying that was the change in the policy, although Member
Rauter was accurate in the statute citations.
Member Rauter said the solution is the legacy ITTF template which has morphed into the
Statewide Interoperability Template (SWIT) and that the issues that were discussed as far
as in the clear interoperability talk groups are already there for neighboring counties to
participate which is just a phone call to the SCOC for a heads up to use the talk groups.
