Verizon, city reach agreement

This story originally appeared in The Marion Daily Republican News by staff writer, Rick Hayes.

MARION — Free access to Verizon cell phone towers will enhance communications and improve public safety within the Marion Police Department as a result of a recent agreement.

“We’re pleased to announce your partnership with us in building a private network. It’s a great solution for any city, business or organization to extend the reach of their internal networks while providing enhanced security and performance,” said John Clawson, government sales manager for Verizon, at Monday’s city council meeting. “Essentially it allows organizations like yourself to manage its wireless devices to its own internal network,” he added.

“We’ve been trying to build our own Wi-Fi network to help improve public safety. Verizon is giving us free access to their cell phone towers which will help us improve our public safety,” said Terrance Henry, the city’s IT director. “At the same time, we are getting new software at the police department. We have 26 new laptops from Panasonic that will allow our police officers to patrol longer. Officers will have access to everything in their squad cars that is available at police headquarters.”

The new software program, being installed by an Ohio company, I.D. Network, will go live on Monday, according to Chief of Police Dawn Tondini.

“The thing that I’m proud of in working with the I.D. Network company is that they were willing to work with us on our limited budget,” said Henry. “We did a study recently of our police officers and learned they spend three or four hours at headquarters filling out reports. With this new technology, they won’t have to be at headquarters, they fill out the reports from the field.”

Henry added that very few squad cars had Internet access in their cars. When they needed to run background checks or gather other information they had to call dispatch. Now they will have instant accessibility from their squad cars which will improve the wait time.

“We needed their (Verizon) cell phone towers in order to connect our squad cars back to our police department,” Henry said.

City leaders learned it has been designated as a Most Progressive City by Ameren for the efforts of businesses in the city who have “reduced energy consumption and fostered an environment of sustainability,” according to Ameren. A ceremony has been scheduled for 2 p.m. April 14 at city hall to commemorate the recognition.