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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC 7 ASSET FORFEIT 11-01-93CONSENT CALENDAR NO. 7 11-1-93 Inter-Com DATE: OCTOBER 11, 1993 TO: FROM: SUBJECT: WILLIAM A. HUSTON, CITY MANAGER POLICE DEPARTMENT ASSET FORFEITURE APPROPRIATION Recommendation That City Council appropriate $60,000 from the Asset Forfeiture Trust Fund for purchase of equipment for the Police Department. Background Asset forfeiture money can only be used by a police agency. The money cannot be utilized to supplement the General Fund or for any other city business. In essence, the intent of federal law, which has been duplicated in the State of California, is to provide police agencies the "fruits of. illicit activity" to enhance their 'capabilities to combat crime. The Tustin Police Department, like all other police agencies in Orange County, has assigned personnel to the Regional Narcotics Task Force. As a result of our participation, this Department receives a portion of any assets seized as the result of illicit activities. This money has been utilized to purchase capital goods, such as radios, computers, and radio cars, that were not provided in the General Fund. This Department has reserved $700,000 to completely redo our communications system as soon as the 800 mhz system is approved. The Department will purchase new modules, a computer aided dispatch system, and in-car MDTS as soon as feasible. This reserve fund will not be used to purchase any other capital items. The balance of the money in the fund, approximately $540,000, has traditionally been utilized for goods or services that are not provided via the City's General Fund. The Police Department has requested no capital goods for the current year, realizing we can legally utilize asset forfeiture funds, provided they are specifically designed to enhance the Department's ability to provide police services to the community. The attachment outlines the goods and/or services the Police Department would like to purchase. Chief of Police WDF:dh Attachment TUSTIN POLICE DEPARTMENT ASSET FORFEITURE FUND REQUESTS · Dictaphone ProLog 32'channel dual drive, digital recording system... $60,000 Our existing Dictaphone 20-channel recorder utilizes reel to reel magnetic tapes. Our current retention period of these tapes as required by law is 180 days. To maintain this rotation we stock approximately 225 tapes. The cost of each of these tapes is $1001 with some reduction available for high volume purchasing. Each tape records 24 hours of time. Due to budgetary constraints, we have not replaced tapes since early 1991 when 30 w~re replaced. Given the condition and quality of our tapes! at this point, .and the fac~ that no replacements have been made for over 2½ years, it is anticipated we will need to replace at least 50 to i00 of the tapes in the very near future. The age of the curren~ logger is also a consideration. Being purchased in July 1986, and with 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week constant use, the life expectancy of the equipment is 5 years. After-5 years the service contracts raise dramatically, continuing to raise each year thereafter and breakdowns increase. The technology of our present system is considerably outdated, cumbersome, and very time consumingwith respect to retrieving recorded information required by law in public disclosure. We are processing 15 to 20 requests a month for tape recordings for court cases, on-going investigations, training, debriefing of major incidents, personnel evaluations, etc. This is growing. These numbers are in contract to an average monthly request of 1 to 2 per month just a few years ago. Storage of the tapes is also an issue, even in our new facility. Reel to reel tape box dimensions are l'xl'x2". This takes up considerable storage area which can be better utilized than for storage of the outdated technology. Dictaphone has released the first network platform based system on the market place. The ProLog system is for 32 channels on one DAT cartridge as opposed to our current system which carries 24. This new system includes a personal computer for central control as well as networking capabilities all operating through Windows ~oftware. The Pro' Log system of'fers triple redundancy versus dual redundancy. This allows for instantaneous backup in case of failure, and the availability of retrieving information on the fly without impacting the on-line recording capabilities. This recording system has a service response network which means the recorder itself calls in all failures to a 24-hour hotline which relieves this responsibility from Police Department personnel and ensures timely maintenance and service on failures. This technology is leading edge technology. It is based on a 4 millimeter DAT tape that has dimensions of 2"x3"x½" which optimizes storage space. This is the format of the future, replacing the 8 millimeter tape. All technology currently being introduced relies on this tape size. The Department has priced the last generation multiple recorder, the Dictaphone 2800, which was quoted at the same price as the ProLog system. This is a completely tested system which has been in proving sites for two years. Due to the new introduction, Dictaphone has extended the purchase offer to us at the same cost as the older technology initially quoted. This recorder offers us 32 channels versus 24 channels, voice activated record time of 320 hours versus 24 hours on the reel to reel tape, computer based search and play back of recorded information in milliseconds as compared a manual search on the existing system. This technology will carry the Department through the year 2000 and should address all our recording needs through that time. Should the abilities need to be expanded over the existing 32 channels, this system is capable of expansion at a minimal cost, as necessary.