Work of Committee Looking at FirstNet Problems Just Getting Under Way

At D'Agostino’s request, the board Tuesday authorized FirstNet to spend up to $20 million in fiscal year 2013 and make financial commitments this year of as much as $50 million (http://1.usa.gov/11pP8wD).

In April, Fitzgerald questioned whether the board is transparent and open enough and whether first responders are being frozen out of decisions being made as the process of launching the $7 billion national network gets under way (CD April 24 p1). Work of a special committee chaired by board member Wellington Webb (CD May 9 p1), former mayor of Denver, stalled in part after Fitzgerald was hospitalized, Ginn said in a press conference after the meeting. “I think that when the Webb report comes out and we understand what it is, as I said before, we'll implement the recommendations,” he said.

Members of the special committee decided to form two subcommittees, Webb said during the meeting. The first will look at openness and transparency concerns and a second at conflict of interest in contracting decisions, two issues raised by Fitzgerald. The committee is working with lawyers from the Department of Commerce who have not done work in the past on FirstNet, Webb said. Barry Robinson, the department’s chief counsel for economic affairs, will lead the legal team, Webb said. “Now that we've had time to get organized and secure the resources that we need, we're ready to begin our work,” Webb said. “We take our work very seriously and are eager to make swift progress.”

Ginn said after the meeting the board is reaching out to public safety, primarily through regional meetings, which started with a meeting for the Mid-Atlantic region May 15 (CD May 16 p8). Two more workshops have been completed, with three more to go, according to a news release (http://1.usa.gov/18LVTef). “They are noticing that we are listening and that is why we are there, we're there to share a vision, share what we know today,” Ginn told reporters. “We have more iterations of outreach to do. We have more we can do. We have more we should do. We're planning here in the very near term additional outreach. ... I do think we will never listen enough and never do enough outreach and right now we're so lightly resourced that we're not doing as much as we want to or should. We're doing as much as we can.”

The 40-member Public Safety Advisory Committee, created by the spectrum law which launched FirstNet, to provide public safety advice to the authority “is an important part of FirstNet and this board sees it that way,” Ginn said. One of Fitzgerald’s criticisms at the April meeting was that the PSAC had largely been ignored. Ginn noted that there are “legal challenges” to providing some information to PSAC since it is a “representative body” but not part of the federal government. The FirstNet board is working with lawyers trying to disclose as much information to PSAC as possible, Ginn said. “There are components of what we're researching that we can’t share with people outside the federal government because there are no nondisclosure requirements” for PSAC members, he said. “There are no requirements for secrecy. They don’t have to go through the financial disclosure and vetting that this board had to do to be seated."

The board was not able to work out an agreement with the local government organizations that got Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grants to build out early networks in the 700 MHz band, officials said.

Board member Sue Swenson said board members got a report Monday in a closed session on negotiations with the BTOP jurisdictions. “I was hoping we'd be in a different place,” she told the board. “As a result of the review yesterday there are members of the board who have some questions about the agreement and the form of the agreement that we have so, unfortunately, we're not going to be in a position today to conclude that, which is fine. You know as you get down to the final last straws it’s always the most difficult part.” Swenson did not elaborate on the concerns expressed by board members.

"We have a lot of positive momentum with the BTOP first movers,” D'Agostino said. “We need to support the BTOP first movers and will continue to do that as we move forward. ... We will learn from their experiences and we will be there to help and assist them as they become part of the FirstNet family."

"I've done a lot of listening but there’s a lot more listening to do,” D'Agostino said during his first public report to the board as general manager. “My goodness, we have a long ways to go and we've got to get much deeper across a much broader base of constituents. ... We need to start spending more time building the broader business. This is not just a technology decision. This is not just a listening decision with outreach. We have to build the infrastructure of this business.”

"We are to hold the single public safety wireless license,” D'Agostino said. “We're not supposed to have a wireless license that’s split in a number of people’s hands. We're supposed to be the stewards of that license and we're supposed to hold it for the benefit of public safety. We're entrusted to ensure that the building, deployment and operation of this nationwide interoperable public safety network happens and happens in a way that includes the full view and consultation of the states, the federal government, the tribes and all the key stakeholders.” FirstNet must be “fair and transparent and objective” in all its decisions and contract awards, D'Agostino said. The new network must also be “judicious with taxpayer funding” and operate with maximum efficiency, he said.

Also Tuesday, board member Jeff Johnson reported to the board on FirstNet outreach efforts (http://1.usa.gov/11VYyBN). The three regional workshops were attended by 276 representatives from 23 states and five territories, he said. “Our goal was to set a tone of open, frank talk and that’s what we heard,” Johnson said.