Monterey County to roll out new radio system

Monterey County is working to roll out a new radio system for all first responders. This new digital system, which has been in the works for years, will allow law enforcement, fire and emergency services agencies to encrypt, or close radio channels during certain calls.

“It’s an officer safety issue for us,” said Cmdr. Joe Moses with the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office. “If the general public, meaning the bad guys that we’re going after, can hear what we’re doing, where we’re approaching from and those kinds of things in an active incident, we lose that edge. We always want to maintain the upper hand.”

Moses said Monterey County’s topography presents its own challenges in radio communication. That’s why county leaders are looking at a hybrid of two systems.

“In the urban system in the city of Salinas, Prunedale, Monterey, they will be able to have a radio system that is a digital system,” Moses said. “The rest of the county has to be a different system and those two systems have to integrate with each other.”

Each law enforcement and fire agency will have to come up with its own policy. Salinas Fire Department plans to keep its primary channel open, so the public can hear what’s going on, yet have the ability to encrypt it in certain situations.

“Anything that would involve a detailed, longstanding event, like a SWAT standoff with somebody,” Capt. Michele Vaughn said. “We may need to go to encrypted channels to work with the local law enforcement agencies to safely get someone whose locked themselves down in a home or maybe a hostage situation.”

Salinas Police has not yet solidified its policy, while the Sheriff’s Office is taking the media and the public into account.

‘We’ve decided not to encrypt our primary channel,” Moses said. “One for interoperability with our other agencies and within our own agency too, so we can hear each other and talk to each other and also for public information too. There are some rights that the media has, that the public has, to hear what we’re saying on our primary channel.”

The encryption system is a concern for news agencies who rely on scanners for breaking news.

“The editorial staff here at the Californian has been in contact with local law enforcement because we’re really very worried about having that tool of our job being taken away,” said Chelcey Adami, crime reporter for the Salinas Californian. “If it is taken away, then finding a way to still being able to do our job well to propertly inform the public.”

KION reached out to the administrator of the Salinas Crime & News & Community Events Facebook page. Laura Mendez said she welcomed the change and it was a great step in taking the city back because too many criminals have access to scanners and get away.

There’s no word when the actual rollout will happen. A planned 45-day test of the system was supposed to happen next week, but was postponed.