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Show Police want to use cellular phones By MARK EDDINGTON - Staff Writer FARMINGTON Farmirigton police officers, self-equipped with cellular phones, are now awaiting the recommendation of a public safety committee to see if the city will offset the cost of using the devices for police business. Police Chief Jeff Jacobsen recently re-cently asked the City Council for the city to pay $30 per month air time costs for each of the six phones purchased by individual officers. That would cover the first 120 minutes of air time, a figure which Jacobsen said was the average amount of monthly air time used by officers in departments which have the devices. Kaysville, Centerville, Layton and the Davis County Sheriff's Of fice are some of the agencies Jacobsen says use mobile phones. He called them a valuable tool in enhancing efficiency, secure communications com-munications and officer safety. City Administrator Max Forbush agreed and recommended approval of Jacobson s request. Council members Pat Achter and Greg Bell also favored the proposal. 'I go with Max's recommendation recommenda-tion and I feel confident enough with our police chief to go along with his recommendation," Achter said. But Councilmen Jim Par sell and Gary Elliot disagreed, advocating further review of the proposal by a committee. Elliot recalled his experience expe-rience with military police use of the phones and said the costs went up dramatically. "There are lot of things like private use of police vehicles that don't sit well with the community. I would recommend a study of citizens and not police to see if it (the proposal) has merit." Asked if the city would be paying for any personal calls made in the first 120 minutes, Jacobsen conceded conced-ed there would be, but added officers offi-cers would pay for all calls including in-cluding police business after the first two hours had expired. "Those police agencies already on the program pro-gram say it all averages out," he said. Individual officers have already purchased the mobile phones, paying pay-ing anywhere from $350 to $600. "We feel we're offering the city a pretty good deal. We're using our own equipment and saying, We're willing and happy to do that if you'll just help us pay some of the air time we use these phones for work,' " Jacobsen explained. If approved, the department would be billed monthly at a special governmental rate of 25 cents per minute by Cellular One. The city would add $30 to officers' paychecks and each officer would be responsible to pay his own bill. An additional safeguard against non-payment would require officers to sign an agreement promising to pay. Non-payment will result in the amount being deducted from an officer's next paycheck. While the city's cost would be comparatively small-about $180 a month, Jacobsen contends the payoff from using the phones would be relatively large. He estimates officers currently lose an hour per shift driving back to the police station to call dispatch or citizens I when police scanners make putting ' out sensitive information out over the radio too risky. He also pointed out the utility of the phones in allowing him to maintain main-tain a vital communications link and direct officers at the scene r f emergency from his home until iV could arrive. Finally, Jacobsen extolled the benefit of the phones in promoting the safety of officers responding to family fights or domestic violence. "With a cellular phone the officer offi-cer can see the house and assess the situation. He can talk the people into coming outside rather than risking risk-ing his safety by going into a situation situa-tion blindly." Jacobsen has been unsuccessful in getting the council's approval to include money for portable phones for the past two years. The committee com-mittee is expected to make a rN ommendation on compensation air time sometime within the next couple of months. n |