Special Committee to Look at FirstNet Complaints
The First Responder Network Authority Board agreed to launch a special committee to investigate questions about FirstNet management raised last month by board member Paul Fitzgerald, sheriff of Story County, Iowa. Fitzgerald questioned whether the board is transparent and open and whether first responders are being frozen out of decisions being made as the process of launching the network gets under way (CD April 24 p1). The board met by conference call Wednesday.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
Fitzgerald submitted a resolution in April raising questions about FirstNet operations, which was tabled by the board. Only Fitzgerald voted for the resolution. The review committee is to look specifically at “FirstNet’s compliance with applicable federal hiring and procurement rules, conflict of interest rules and open meeting requirements,” said a resolution approved by the board without discussion.
The Special Review Committee is to be chaired by Wellington Webb, former mayor of Denver, who disagreed sharply with Fitzgerald at last month’s meeting. Webb had quickly called for the tabling of Fitzgerald’s resolution. Other members of the special committee include New York City Police Department Deputy Chief Charles Dowd; Jeffrey Johnson, CEO of the Western Fire Chiefs Association; and Ed Reynolds, a retired telecom executive. Three federal executives will also serve on the committee.
"We are entrusting to you, the committee, to work through all of these issues and report back to us,” said Sam Ginn, chairman of the board. “I am dedicated to the proposition that I will implement your recommendations and I immediately will begin to look for ways to improve the working relationships on the board. I don’t think that we can ever forget the complexity, the enormity of the project that we are taking on here."
Webb said the special committee needs to move quickly, but the review must be thorough. “I think it’s important that everyone’s reputation be maintained and kept intact and that we do answer the issues that have been addressed, so that we can all collectively move forward,” he said.