Special Committee Report Clears FirstNet Board Members of Wrongdoing

The board “conducted open and transparent decision making,” the report found. “FirstNet did not withhold records from Board members” and “continues to work on a network plan in compliance with statutory requirements.” The special committee is still working on a report on conflict of interest issues also raised by Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald, sheriff of Story County, Iowa, questioned at the board’s April meeting (CD April 24 p1) whether the board’s workings were open and transparent, including its hiring of consultants. Past president of the National Sheriffs’ Association, Fitzgerald complained that first responders themselves had often been left out of decisionmaking.

Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, special committee chairman, said members and staff put hundreds of hours of work into the report, which he presented Monday, following a 10-minute closed session that gave members a chance to ask questions. No members asked any questions during the open part of the board meeting. NTIA later posted the report (http://1.usa.gov/18PKsWf).

Fitzgerald did not vote to accept the report, but he did vote to make it public. Other board members voted Monday to do both.

After reading the special report, “I was initially very concerned by the final product as the report primarily addressed legality versus illegality as the sole test for the acceptability of our actions,” Fitzgerald said. “In essence the report finds that our processes were not illegal. I am certainly glad that we did not break the law, however my motion did not assert that we did break any law, but instead called out that some of our processes and procedures should have been improved upon.” But the review committee also made “many recommendations for board improvement” that could be helpful, he said. “Specifically, I am pleased that the report recommends that board consider revisiting the openness of our meetings, the involvement of public safety ... and the equal access to documents, budgets and information by all board members.”

Board Chairman Sam Ginn, a retired telecom executive, was pleased by the report. The special committee “found that the board met its statutory obligations, we conducted our meetings appropriately, we shared information among board members and did nothing wrong in our work related to planning the network,” he said. “I believed this to be true all along.”

The board will once again start holding biweekly closed calls, something it hasn’t done since April, on the advice of counsel, Ginn said. “I think it has significantly interfered with our ability to manage this project,” he said. Ginn also warned that the review of Fitzgerald’s complaints has led to “strained relationships among certain board members” and “my observation for a long time has been that effective boards have to have confidence in one another.” Ginn said he would address the issue “and make sure we can bring this board back together.”

The report determined that the closed calls were “informational briefings that did not constitute decision-making, voting or otherwise narrow options in such a manner so as to preclude issues that would appropriately be considered by the Board in public session.” The briefings and calls “were designed primarily to provide Board members with information about FirstNet’s day-to-day activities,” the report said. The Commerce Department’s chief counsel for economic affairs has determined that the closed meetings did not violate provisions in the spectrum law that require that “[m]eetings of the Board, including any committee of the Board, shall be open to the public,” the report said.

The special committee also looked at Fitzgerald’s complaints that he was not able to receive a financial report on the board status in a timely manner and that some board members had unequal access to documents. “The information reviewed suggests that those Board members who served in dual capacities (as board members and in managerial roles), did have more access to FirstNet records than the rest of the Board,” the report said. The special committee recognizes, the report said, that “holding dual roles, while not ideal, stemmed from the need to stand up the FirstNet organization quickly in its infancy, as well as the lag time in hiring a FirstNet full-time staff.” Since then, a general manager and other staff have been hired and are filling roles first taken on by board members, the report said.

"These conclusions are based on interviews, documents and other information compiled through and in conjunction with the efforts of the Chief Counsel for Economic Affairs and his staff, including: Board member Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald’s April 23, 2013 motion and statement; legal analysis of FirstNet’s statutory authority; interviews with FirstNet Board members and staff; interviews with staff from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration; and FirstNet’s bylaws, resolutions, meeting minutes, meeting webcasts, internal correspondence, and notices to the public,” the report said.

D'Agostino said FirstNet will examine lessons learned from any communications problems during last week’s shootings at the Washington Nay Yard. He said he and other FirstNet staffers also recently went to Oklahoma to get a briefing from Gov. Mary Fallin (R) and other state officials on emergency communications during the May tornado that killed more than 20 and injured dozens of others.

House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee, sent NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling a letter Monday asking about communications problems following the Navy Yard shooting and its implications for FirstNet (http://1.usa.gov/1gTETVH).

Reports suggest “that due to faulty radios, some first responders had to resort to their personal cell phones and ‘runners’ to communicate as the tragedy was unfolding,” the letter said. “If these reports are accurate, this will not be the first time communications difficulties impaired first responders during an emergency. Unfortunately, there have been numerous communications system failures during recent natural disasters and national emergencies, most notably the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.” But, they wrote, last year Congress enacted legislation that launched FirstNet. “Congress created FirstNet to ensure that first responders from public safety agencies across the country are able to communicate with each other through a common broadband network,” the letter said. “Indeed, FirstNet’s mission is to prevent exactly the types of communications failures that reportedly occurred at the Navy Yard last week. This horrific incident serves as a further reminder just how critical it is for FirstNet to succeed in its mission."

D'Agostino said FirstNet has put 10 requests for information “on the street” and received 276 responses, including 57 to the combined partner and radio network RFI and 23 responses specifically replying to a partnership RFI. “I'm really pleased that there have been some creative options that will help us as we begin to work through and think about how to approach building out this network,” he said. FirstNet is also negotiating a lease on a headquarters facility in northern Virginia in an existing government building, he said.