Posted on Mon, Mar. 10, 2008
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Biloxi police go their own way
MASP a bust at $19M, they buy their own system
By MICHAEL A. BELL
mbell@sunherald.com
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BILOXI --
"The technology is there," Weatherford said. "It's been there."'Behind the curve'
Public safety agencies in Chicago, Topeka, and New York City have used such data-sharing networks for years. With the technology already available, many city and county leaders questioned why Allen wanted to "reinvent the wheel."
Backed by millions of federal tax dollars, Allen insisted he had the opportunity to build a national model, worthy of Homeland Security's praise. He provided a lengthy list of experts who would help develop the software, including consultants from Stennis Space Center paid up to $450 per day, and a judge paid $30,000 for 75 days of work to provide criminal justice insight.
And during his presentation, Allen also talked about 400 surveys of Coast emergency officials and other potential end-users who wanted a new system.
"They bring in all these academicians, and they could have already bought something off the shelf," said Harley Schinker, former Long Beach police chief and Chicago police electronics director. "Why waste the time and the money? Why?"
"We're (now) seven to 10 years behind the curve," he said.
Before leaving the Windy City force in 2002 for the Coast, Schinker's patrol officers had been swapping data with other agencies around Chicago for about eight years. Allen's concept, Schinker said, was insulting.
"I never bought into it from the day I walked in the door and heard the spiel," said Schinker, who retired from Long Beach in 2006. "I wanted to know what cave I was in. I wanted to know if they bought this bogus (expletive) from Fred Flintstone."
But Schinker's 70-member squad, along with other smaller agencies across the Coast, didn't have the resources or the budgets to turn away. The system provided a chance, a hope to replace pens and paper with modern technology.
"It sounded like it would give an agency the opportunity to participate in something that, individually, they would never (financially) do," said Ronald Cuevas, Hancock County undersheriff.
"If it wasn't for the (Mississippi) Automated System Project," said Pass Christian dispatcher Gloria Saunders, "we wouldn't have a CAD." The software, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, is vital to sending first responders to emergency calls.
The departments will ride out the wave, hoping the new MASP system modeled after a Florida sheriff's office will work. It is the only option.
On the 'slow boat'
Allen defends his decisions, saying he couldn't simply purchase a package from a "software store" and "plug it in."
