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Nor ember 30, 20215

FOR YOUR. IN FORMATION MEMO

To: Mayor and Members of Council

I  
Front: Harry Black, City Manager  i i 
Subject: Motorola Radios

 

"this memo is in relation to questions that came up during the NQVUi?llb?i 23m Budget and

Finance Meeting. The Emergency Ordinance is to authorize the City Manager to make a. direct
award contract to Motorola, Inc. to purchase 1,546 APX radios and. accessories to upgrade the
radios used by the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD). Motorola is the single available source
for these units.

current ?eet ot? Motorola radios will reach obsolescence in 2018. The City is in the
process of upgrading its radio communication. system in line v. ith the State of Ohio?s
Multi Agency Radio Communications System (MARCS). Replacing the current fleet of radios,
in conjunction with the upgrade, avoids the logistical issues associated with bringing the radios
out of service to reprogram them to work on the new MARCS. in addition, the cost to reprogram
the old units is approximately $100,000.

The City currently uses Motorola tor its emergency radio infrastructure (cg, radio caches,
software, and management tools). Using another vendor?s radios would greatly increase costs
due to the need for additional service contracts, pans inventory, of?cer and support staff training.
and new programming software. Also, the Cincinnati Fire Department (CPD) utilizes these new
radios; transition. to these same radios would ensure uninterrupted communications ability
between the two respective agencies. Furthermore, the Enteiprise Technology Services
Department (HTS) services inobiic and portable radios for all City Departments. This work is
not outsourced to any vendors. ETS is trained on the use of Motorola programming software and
also maintains an inventmy of spare parts for making repairs to i?vl'otorola APX radios.

The pricing that the City is receiving from Motorola is based on the State of Ohio tenn contract
(to, STS 3573077) which was competitively let. The pricing on the contract is discount based
and represents a 25% discount off of" iist price. Furthermore, the City has negotiated an
additional discount of 15% and will receive an additional $175,000 discount should the order be
placed prior to December 1 l, 2015. Failure to place the UI?t?icI? before the aforementioned date
could put the City at risk ol? losing out on the aforementioned discounts which would increase the
City?s purchase price for the radios by approximately ??085,150.

ks this is; strictly commodity purchase: (La, the City is only buying radios and acceasories for
the radios), there is no \a {13* to subcontract any portitm ofthis cont: lat tn any vendor that ides
a commercially useful function for this transaction.

Based on 1316.: abom facts, the City Administration is approval of the 
Ordinance (Doc. 2201501506 to authr?rize the Ci?i?y Manager to contract with MOtorola, Inc. to
purchase 01? 1,546 APY radios and accessories; to upgrade the radios used by Cincinnati Police.