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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, April 6, 2005

Radio-project delays costly for Big Island

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

HILO, Hawai'i — Delays in a contract to complete a microwave radio network for Big Island police and other agencies have cost Big Island taxpayers an additional $600,000, largely because the federal government failed to deliver financing it was supposed to provide for the project, according to Big Island police.

Big Island Assistant Police Chief Elroy Osorio Jr. told members of the Big Island County Council yesterday that the county's deal with the federal government "has been a disaster," causing delays in construction on two microwave sites that in turn have delayed activation of an islandwide network.

The delays also will cause the county to miss a federal deadline this month for moving county police and other radio traffic from one frequency range to another, Osorio said.

Osorio appeared before the council yesterday to request an additional $1.18 million because of the delays and to cover federal money that did not materialize. That brings the total cost for the 20-tower network to more than $13.6 million. The council's finance committee gave preliminary approval to the request.

The project began in 2000 after the county was required by the federal government to abandon the frequencies it has been using at 2 gigahertz because those frequencies had been allocated for use by private telecommunications providers.

As the county planned to install new equipment to switch to a 6-gigahertz system, it also decided to upgrade the rest of its aging microwave network.