By Chip Johnson, The San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco — In the years following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration began providing funds to upgrade local emergency communications systems around the country.

The goal was to create a system that would facilitate communications among emergency responders.

As it stands now, law enforcement and other public safety agencies communicate on their own separate systems. The Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, for example, cannot communicate by radio with Oakland police. The same is true of other police and fire and other emergency services across the region.

The federal agency sought private companies to work with local governments, and in the Bay Area, Motorola was selected to upgrade to 193 communications towers spread across the Bay Area.

The federal agency would provide $50 million so that agencies could easily communicate – via a new 700-megahertz radio band – and coordinate in the event of a major disaster or terrorist attack. Motorola would kick in an additional $20 million.

It turns out, however, that not all local agencies are on the same wavelength when it comes to signing up for this program.

Part of the reluctance is that some agencies and cities feel there is an unknown local cost associated with the program.

With a Wednesday deadline set to commit to the project, a San Jose official said, the City Council there is expected to reject the plan.

It’s not that San Jose city officials disagree with the concept, but they are concerned about the process that has led them to this point.

If the San Jose City Council votes as expected, it would join Santa Cruz County as the second jurisdiction in the fledgling communications network to reject the plan in its current form.

The San Francisco Police Department has endorsed the project, and in Oakland, the city will send a letter of intent that comes with conditions.

“We want to participate in this program, but we don’t know all the costs, and we’re not willing to write a blank check,” said Reneé Domingo, director of Oakland’s Office of Emergency Services.

The latest controversy was touched off by a letter sent from Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern’s office warning potential partners of a drop-dead Dec. 15 deadline to decide whether they were in or out.

The letter angered officials in San Jose and Santa Clara County for a number of reasons, including the question of whether Ahern’s office had the authority to impose such a deadline. In a phone interview on Monday, Ahern said his sole intent was to move the project forward.

San Jose officials are convinced there are hidden costs associated with an infrastructure upgrade of that magnitude that must be identified before they or any other city commits to the project.

There are, for example, no estimates for the cost of equipping thousands of emergency vehicles, the technology upgrades needed in emergency operations centers or the true cost of retrofitting standing communications towers mistakenly described as shovel-ready sites, said Michelle McGurk, a policy adviser in San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s office.

Her point is that it shouldn’t matter anyway, because no government entity has had the opportunity to present the project and its true costs for public debate. At this point, there is not even an estimate on the monthly subscriber fee users would pay, she said.

“You wouldn’t sign up for a cell phone plan unless you knew what it was going to cost you,” McGurk said.

McGurk also said San Jose was the first public entity to hold a vote on the matter.

In some instances, county sheriff’s offices have been given authority to decide on the project without government involvement, and that simply isn’t a legitimate way to conduct public business.

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