Commissioners receive breakdown on radio proposal costs

Gonzales County commissioners now have plenty of information to digest about which radio system they should choose for Gonzales County offices and first responders — LCRA/L3Harris or Victoria Communications Systems/Motorola.

Representatives from both companies were present to discuss their proposals and display their portable radios at Monday’s regular meeting while Emergency Management Coordinator Jimmy Harless gave commissioners a comparison breakdown of costs for each.

Harless presented slides showing the number of radios and mobile units requested by each county office as well as each first responder entity in Gonzales County. He then showed the cost for purchasing L3Harris portables and mobiles from LCRA as well as Motorola portables and radios from Victoria Communications Systems (VCS).

“On the portable side, for the county offices, the Harris radio is a little less expensive than the Motorola radio,” Harless said. “Now, let me clarify that my vow was to compare apples to apples. So we're comparing the Motorola 8000, not the XE, because we made sure we compared it to the Harris XL200, which was comparable. At the end of the slide, you’ll see the upgrades, which are the XL400 along with the 8000XE. We had to do it that way.”

Harless noted the mobile in-car radio for Motorola is a 100-watt radio, while the mobile radio for L3Harris is a 35-watt radio.

“So you can see the cost difference on portable side, where the portable cost for Harris radios, again, apples to apples, is a little less, but when you get to the mobile side, you can see that Victoria, that Motorola is a little less, plus it's a 100-watt radio,” Harless said.

Harless said the counties to Gonzales’ north primarily use LCRA’s 700 band, while south of Gonzales County are DeWitt County and Lavaca County, which use VHF through Motorola.

“The 100 watt radio, which is currently what I have, I believe Constable Hall has them and I believe the Sheriff's Office also has 100-watt radios, so that makes a little bit of a difference when you are down south and talking to Lavaca County or DeWitt County,” Harless said.

Harless said the total number of units requested were 151 portables and 131 mobile units. By department, that breaks down to the following:

• GCSO: 34 portables, 11 mobile units;

• Precinct 3 Constable: two portables, three mobile;

• Precinct 4 Constable: two portables, two mobile;

• Emergency Mgt.: two portables, two mobile;

• Gonzales FD: eight portables, two mobile;

• Gonzales EMS: 11 portables, 16 mobile;

• Gonzales PD: 14 mobile units only;

• Nixon PD: 13 portables, nine mobile;

• Waelder PD: nine portables, six mobile;

• Smiley Marshal: five portables, two mobile;

• Nixon VFD: 15 portables, 10 mobile;

• Ottine VFD: seven portables, five mobile;

• Smiley VFD: six portables, three mobile;

• Waelder VFD: 14 portables, six mobile;

• Belmont VFD: 11 portables, 13 mobile;

• Precinct 1 Comm.: two portables, two mobile;

• Precinct 2 Comm.: two portables, 13 mobile;

• Precinct 3 Comm.: two portable, 10 mobile;

• Precinct 4 Comm.: six portable, two mobile.

L3Harris’ mobile units are priced at $7,764.12 each, while the Motorola mobile unit is priced at $6,331.50 each with an additional $590 for installation, bringing that total to $6,921.50. On the portable side, L3Harris’ XL200P is priced at $5,162.33, while the Motorola 8000 is $6,067 each. When upgrades are made, the L3Harris XL400P is $9,973.57 per unit, while the Motorola 8000XE is $8,522 per unit.

The total cost of buying XL200P portables and the mobiles from L3Harris is originally higher at $1,796,611.55 for all 282 units, compared to $1,745,543.50 for Motorola’s 8000 portables and their mobiles, but once discounts are applied for purchasing in bulk from L3Harris, that price drops to $1,722,976.45, or $22,567.05 less than Motorola.

However, if the county considers buying the higher-priced upgraded portable radios, the price for 151 L3Harris XL400Ps comes out to $1,506,009.07 compared to $1,286,822 for 151 Motorola 8000XEs, a difference of $219,187.07.

County Judge Pat Davis asked LCRA officials if they were still working with Dailey-Wells, a San Antonio-based radio system company which recently made news last month when a former San Angelo police chief was found guilty of accepting bribes and using his official position to help the company land a $5.7 million vendor contract with the city of San Angelo in return for more than $175,000 in kickbacks for himself and his band.

“For this proposal, we’re working directly with L3Harris,” an LCRA representative said. “We have worked with Dailey-Wells for 20 years doing repair and inventory of our radios in San Antonio. We don’t like to stock inventory at LCRA so they stock radios on our behalf. For this transaction, we’re not going to buy the radios from them. We’re going to buy them from L3Harris and work directly with the manufacturer.”

Davis noted at an October meeting in Nixon, Dailey-Wells was going to be a part of the transaction and was taking a lead role in a presentation to the Nixon City Council.

“We have in the past worked with them as a distributor for holding stock and they are the second stop past our own internal radio shop if repairs need to go back to L3Harris,” the representative replied. “We still work with them at times but as far as Gonzales County is concerned, there is no Dailey-Wells involved.”

Justin La Fleur, a Nixon City Councilman, voiced his support for the L3Harris radios, saying he and members of the Nixon Police Department were able to hear each other using a 35-watt radio throughout the county and beyond.

“I felt everybody needed to know that it's not about the radio and wattage, it's about the system,” La Fleur said. “One tower in Gonzales County and covers all of it and outside it.”

Commissioners have tabled a decision on the radios to give themselves time to analyze all the data they just received.