March 18, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, contact Ibis Antongiorgi, Press Secretary to Cook County Board President Todd H. Stroger, at 312-603-0396 or by email at iantongiorgi@cookcountygov.com.

Cook County announces next phase in $17.5 million federally funded homeland security project  

CHICAGO, Illinois – Today Cook County’s state-of-the-art interoperable mobile video and data network will be expanded for first responders throughout the region. The Board of Commissioners approved a series of contracts at a board meeting for Phase III of the County’s federally funded county-wide Homeland Security public safety initiative, Project Shield.

“Public safety remains a critical concern for my administration, whether we are working to confront a natural disaster or a terrorist threat,” said Cook County Board President Todd Stroger. “Project Shield’s primary goal is to ensure the security of County residents by putting the tools and the training to tackle any emergency swiftly and efficiently directly in the hands of our first responders. This phase of the project will bring that capacity to first responders throughout the region.”

Phase III, led by the Cook County’s Office of Information Technology, will allow 82 remaining municipalities to be outfitted with equipment that gives them the ability to interoperate with the Project Shield network. April 1st has been set as the project’s engineering and installation start date. The Cook County Bureau of Technology will act as the support and technical enabler for all partners in the effort, including the Cook County Department of Health, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, and all suburban municipalities.

The overall effort is designed to enhance Cook County’s ability to continue to collaborate with its regional partners – including the City of Chicago, suburban municipalities, the State of Illinois and collar counties, some of which have interoperable systems already in place. The County’s approach meets the federal criteria for this regionally based federal grant, and strengthens work with strategic public safety partners throughout the area.

Federal funding for the effort comes from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Domestic Preparedness, which has also provided grant funds in the past for Project Shield – formally known as the Cook County Chicago Urban Area Security Initiative. The initiative has been structured as a comprehensive, multi-tiered effort to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from terrorist events or natural disasters.

First, the effort is designed to ensure that municipalities throughout the region have truly interoperative communications systems that can seamlessly communicate with one another in the wake of an emergency. Lack of interoperability severely hampered rescue operations among different first responder groups after the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington DC. Project Shield also includes the provision of equipment, tools and information to first responders and their lead agencies, along with enhanced training for first responders and critical staff, the hardening of critical facilities, and ongoing planning and staging of emergency response exercises to ensure public safety.

Phase III will unify and standardize both hardware and software elements necessary to provide service and improve the interoperable communications for all first responders by expanding the County’s Wide Area Network (WAN) access points for wireless capabilities. This expansion will give first responders increased access to voice, video and data information across jurisdictional boundaries in a fast, highly secure, and efficient manner.

The proposed contracts come in the wake of a vigorous RFP process divided into three main components: a contract for the effort’s mobile video and data network system; a network control software contract for the Cook County Communications Command Center; and a quality assurance contract.

Companies were allowed to combine bids for the first two components, but prospective vendors were required to bid on the third component – quality control – separately to insure the independence of the quality assurance contractor from the technical systems engineering organization. The two sections on systems and network control applications total about 96% of the value of the $17.5 million in federal grant moneys available to fund the effort. Cook County assembled an evaluation committee that included representatives from the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, the Cook County Bureau of Information Technology, and the Cook County Judicial Advisory Council to review the entire effort, from the crafting of the RFP to the review of final bids.

Thirty-three companies participated in a mandatory pre-responders conference required for all prospective bidders, and that process led to a total of 11 proposal submissions, including a number of proposals that combined bids for systems and network control applications.

“We were very pleased with the response to this competitive procurement opportunity,” said Cook County Chief Information Officer Antonio Hylton.

The evaluation committee recommended Johnson Control for Sections 1 and 2 of the project, and Synch Solutions for Section 3 of the project. Both companies have full MBE/WBE compliance. Johnson Controls is a $36 billion global technology leader with a customer base that includes the Pentagon, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute and the Federal Aviation Administration. Synch Solutions has established a strong track record in public sector work in the last ten years. Their Polaris methodology establishes the structure to ensure reliable and predictable delivery of services. 

The project is scheduled to be completed by fall 2008.

For more information, contact Ibis Antongiorgi, Press Secretary to Cook County Board President Todd H. Stroger, at 312-603-0396 or iantongiorgi@cookcountygov.com. 

# # #