2-Avistas Report - 11-25-2025.pdf

Initial “As Is” Evaluation of

Radio System Strategy for

Hood County, Texas

November 17th, 2025

Initial “As Is” Evaluation of Radio System Strategy for Hood County

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary Background Current Situation Current Issues Existing Contracts Hood County Support Capabilities Governance Next Steps Work Plan Appendix 1 Hood County Radio Systems Strategy “As Is” Review Summary Appendix 2 Hood County Systems Support Staff Appendix 3 Meeting Summaries

Meeting with Hood County to review engagement objectives and process and the Current Project 25 (P25) Radio Interoperability Situation in Hood County

Meeting with Hood County Management and Technical Staff Regarding P25 systems operations and acquisition

Meeting with City of Granbury GRRN Management Regarding P25 systems operations

Meeting with Hood County Staff to discuss organizational considerations to support Hood County P25 systems operations

Meeting with Parker County to discuss P25 projects in process

Appendix 4 Commissioners Court Meetings with GRRN Discussions Granbury Regional Radio Network (GRRN) AUGUST 28, 2025

Emergency Operations Center October 8, 2025

Appendix 5 Operational failure documentation provided by Hood County and L3 Harris Hood County Emergency Communications ECC System Degradation Report

L3Harris Incident Summary of the previous Hood County Degradation Report

Appendix 6 Hood County Radio Network – Initial Governance Outline

Table of Figures Figure 1. - Agencies and population in the three-county area Figure 2. - Current Granbury Regional Radio Network Towers Figure 3. - L3Harris proposal overview for Hood County Figure 4. - Proposed Hood County system Tower sites Figure 5. - Proposed L3Harris Interconnection plan Figure 6. - Figure 6. – COBIT Process Reference Model Chart Figure 7. - Possible Hood County P25 system configuration

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Executive Summary This report communicates findings from an initial and quick inspection (aka Avistas “SNAP Assessment”) of Hood County’s P25 Radio Network posture and provides an independent, professional engineering assessment with recommendations for a long-term path forward to support “mission critical” P25 services for all constituents and collaboration partners within Hood County.

SNAP Assessment areas of interest reviewed include:

1. The current situation regarding radio assets, contracts, support, maintenance, configuration and control

2. A summarization of current issues regarding Hood County radio systems agility

3. Existing contract(s) to understand implication for sustainable growth, agility and economy

4. Existing support capabilities of the County staff vs “third parties” (including cities and other agencies)

5. Governance structure of actual Radio System ownership, control and ability to scale to meet the needs of Hood County

During the past five (5) years, Hood County has focused on transitioning to a Project 25 (P25) digital Land Mobile Radio (LMR) environment in order to overcome gaps in service coverage with existing analog radio systems while preparing for mandated “interoperability” with other emergency communications capabilities and public safety agencies nationwide.

The most cost-effective step to achieve these objectives relied on simple agreements (originally a Memorandum of Understanding from the fall of 2021) with the City of Granbury to share LMR infrastructure relating to new digital radio “Common Core Equipment” and supporting elements from L3Harris called the Granbury Regional Radio Network (GRRN).

Today, services are provided under an Interlocal Agreement effective as of September 3rd, 2025, and renewable on an annual basis or until one party provides a thirty (30) day written notification to the other.

Although both parties are “Stakeholders” in the Interlocal Agreement, the LMR services provided are based on Hood County in the role of essentially a “subscriber” to a City of Granbury white-labeled Managed Service Provider (MSP) offering piggybacking onto an outsourced L3Harris operations support (Network Operations Control [NOC] & Security Operations Control [SOC]) offering to the City of Granbury.

The GRRN is architected to also support neighboring counties of Somervell and Erath with additional P25 “subscribers”.

GRRN was conceived to meet the operational needs of the City of Granbury while providing availability for regional “partners”. The City has thoughtfully contracted a solution to meet the needs of Granbury while extending services to others including Hood County. GRRN seems to be meeting the needs of the City of Granbury well.

Operationally, while GRRN services are expanding and evolving, Hood County has taken a step “backward” from a perspective of radio network “asset management” and “performance management” (of co-located assets) due to tightened cyber security controls relating to visibility into alarms and alerts that were once available to Hood County Dispatch and EOC.

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This has led to more reliance upon a “provider of a provider” (e.g., L3Harris to City of Granbury) to alert and notify Hood County Dispatch on a “Best Efforts” basis. There is a well-documented incident where City services were considered “degraded” but Hood County services were out (as in offline) for a period of time while also impacting Somervell.

This event simply highlighted that the underlying GRRN solution is tailored for resiliency of Granbury radio services, but not necessarily Hood County radio services (and beyond) without much greater definition and design of a highly available (HA) and resilient LMR architecture tailored for Hood County’s mission critical P25 operations. It appears that from a “technology” perspective, the GRRN is quite functional. However, from an “operations” perspective, without greater visibility and control of basic service levels, it will continue to be frustrating for Hood County and other agencies relying upon Hood County radio infrastructure.

In the current Interlocal Agreement, many conditions are either silent or undefined relating to “best in class” service levels, notices and near real-time visibility into monitored points regardless of myriad vendor services contracted.

L3Harris and the City of Granbury share a policy of tightly controlling monitored points for elements covered under an L3Harris agreement with the City (but no longer available to Hood County) and not addressing third-party “monitored points” (sensors) for related assets not explicitly contracted. From the City’s perspective, this is the correct cyber-security posture according to their internal policies and procedures.

However, from a Hood County perspective, this is a major operations continuity and disaster recovery risk factor.

A thorough investigation into Hood County “as is” and “to be” LMR environments is needed in order to determine the wholistic view of Information Technology (IT), Facilities Management/Operational Technology (OT) and nuanced third-party components relied upon throughout Hood County for highly resilient P25 Operations such that Dispatch and EOC has full visibility into alarm conditions supporting “Mission Critical” P25 radio services for Hood County as this is their current responsibility.

Since the Hood County P25 system requires multiple department participation in its architecture (operational, technical and support), design, readiness, deployment and ongoing support, it is recommended that a Hood County Next Generation Emergency Management Advisory Board be established with representation from key stakeholders to establish a comprehensive P25 Strategy, detailed Operations Plan with quantitative key performance indicators and service levels along with a roadmap for deployment over the next twenty-four (24) or so months.

This Advisory Board would then investigate existing assets to identify risks related to single points of failure, end of life equipment and/or missing or underperforming alarm sensors across all trades in the county in preparation for a resilient (multi-path) P25 digital network leveraging wireless and wired solutions with physically redundant radio cores protected in hardened facilities (aka “shelters” or controlled environmental vaults [“CEVs”]). These investigations should span “high tech”, “low tech” and “no tech” solutions and countermeasures to address current and emerging threats. Attention should also be placed on investigating new and emerging nuisances such as drones while considering low tech & no tech solutions such as “no fly” zones across geofenced “restricted areas”.

The Advisory Board should also develop official Hood County policy on P25 Operations with written procedures for collaboration within the county and externally with others considering well defined operational and support roles and responsibilities for all stakeholders including staff, vendors and neighboring participants.

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Policies will most likely reflect current “best practices” along with enhancements to ensure maximum near real-time performance visibility and asset management for key stakeholders regardless of “partner” and “vendor” mix supporting the Hood County P25 System.

From there, a Hood County P25 Systems Requirements documentation can be assembled for procurement of vendor enhancements and support services tailored to meet the specific needs of Hood County.

Normal competitive procurements for required systems can be established while leveraging as much support from existing vendors as possible in order to preserve institutional knowledge and minimize or eliminate unnecessary complexity in field deployments.

Procurement options at this point may include either 1) re-negotiating a more robust Interlocal Agreement or 2) overlaying a new Hood County P25 infrastructure under Hood County’s direct control, supervision and administration in accordance with the Advisory Board’s refreshed P25 Operations Plan.

An earlier option explored purchasing GRRN’s P25 Core by Hood County and assume operational control.

However, in the “SPECIAL CALLED MEETING SUMMARY - Emergency Operations Center October 8, 2025” (see Appendix 4 – Commissioners Court Meetings with GRRN Discussions) Commissioner Eagle stated that “The County offered to purchase the Core but the City was not interested in selling”.

Based on our investigations and meetings, the Hood County technical and operations support staff has the skills and background to effectively support a County owned and operated P25 radio network that could (if desired) also support neighboring counties and jurisdictions.

As a point of reference, the population and organizations supported by the GRRN P25 system are shown in the chart on the next page. Notice that of the current “stakeholder” community contemplated for GRRN, one (1) City of Granbury agency is driving the entire operations of GRRN via a sub-contracted vendor (L3Harris) on behalf of forty-eight (48) additional agencies invited to participate in the existing infrastructure.

Technically, the architecture supports basic radio traffic, but operationally, all “stakeholders” are reliant upon “best efforts” operational practices that are currently not able to scale without major and significant “enhancements” to the Interagency Agreement and shared mission critical infrastructure at towers, controlled environmental vaults (CEV aka “shelters”) and related active electronic equipment including: land lines, IoT sensors, security access controls, etc. at those locations.

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Figure 1. - Agencies and population in the three-county area

Note: The City of Granbury Fire Dispatch is provided by Hood County.

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Background The City of Granbury owns and operates the Granbury Regional Radio Network, serving:

The City of Granbury Hood County Somervell County Erath County, including Stephenville

The current GRRN network tower sites are as follows (yellow markers):

Figure 2. - Current Granbury Regional Radio Network Towers.

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Hood County requested and received a proposal from L3Harris to implement a Hood County Radio Network, covering Hood County and Somervell County, with capability to expand, if desired or required.

According to the P25 interconnect standard, the Project 25 Inter-RF Subsystem Interface (P25 ISSI) allows separate P25 systems to interconnect via ISSI software to permit radios in one P25 system to interact with radios in another P25 system, simplifying mutual aid, pursuit or other inter-agency communications requirements. This capability is included in the L3Harris proposal.

Additionally, a bridging system is included, allowing the P25 system to connect to conventional VHF and UHF Land Mobile Radio (LMR) analog or digital channels, extending the “reach” pf the P25 system to older radio systems.

In the effort to minimize costs, this architecture proposed contains minimal connectivity between towers with single points of failures (SPOF) that will require further investments in digital pathways for resiliency (redundancy) required for “mission critical” operations. There are also “gaps” in digital tools and resources that would allow Hood County to better proactively administer “asset management” and “performance management” duties in accordance with “mission critical” best practices.

Figure 3. - L3Harris proposal overview for Hood County

The proposed antenna sites and an interconnection diagram are shown on the next page.

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Figure 4. - Proposed Hood County system Tower sites

Figure 5. - Proposed L3Harris Interconnection plan

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Current Situation Hood County is growing along with the need to recognize the P25 Digital Radio network as a key “mission critical” infrastructure that spans many departments, constituencies and operational disciplines, each of whom need near real-time visibility into the performance of their department’s assets supporting the overall P25 architecture.

“Mission Critical” by nature requires disciplined operations incorporating resilient and redundant hardware, software, configurations, alarms, alerts, upgraded processes, procedures and skilled personnel that understand quantitative roles, responsibilities and coverage paths.

Hood County has the competent personnel to manage a P25 Digital Radio network but doesn’t currently have control or meaningful operational input for shaping the performance of the existing Granbury Regional Radio Network (GRRN) and its related impacts upon Hood County’s twenty-three (23) agencies depending upon this mission critical P25 infrastructure.

In essence, the City of Granbury and specifically, their Information Technology (IT) Department (on behalf of their Police Department) “operationally” owns the GRRN that is essentially administered via L3Harris via a maintenance and support (NOC & SOC) contract. Thus, one user constituency group (aka agency) within the City of Granbury purchased a P25 radio network to potentially support over forty-eight (48) other agencies throughout the GRRN serving area across Hood, Erath and Somervell Counties.

Technically, GRRN is a good network. However, it is architected and tailored to meet the operational needs of the City of Granbury while supporting traffic from other agencies, as long as the other agencies are provisioned according to their contract mandates from L3Harris and can live with the “best efforts” posture of the current Interlocal Agreement.

Appendix 5 elucidates a major incident recently exposed the differences between “good enough” from a City perspective and County perspective such that “degraded services” were “good enough” for the City of Granbury but “catastrophic” for Hood County and Somervell County.

Underlying “root causes” relate to policy choices, resilient technical architectures, facilities redundancies, remote monitoring, access control and definitions of responsiveness coupled with notice & notification practices layered behind third-party vendors, City staff and County staff (aka bureaucracy).

This type of incident along with others can be remediated through robust documentation and harmonization of operational “best practices” for each and every location supporting active and passive components for a mission critical P25 system in a Hood County Operational Plan that benefits all stakeholders equally.

Best practices should include written Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) from “concept-to-production” of all assets (hardware & software), installation (including shielding, grounding, labeling, etc.), integration, testing, commissioning, performance monitoring (with published & contracted service levels), repairing, replacing and disposing along with the roles, responsibilities, credentials and access privileges of all personnel (staffed and contracted) to administer the assets.

However, the P25 Operational Plan is only as good as the P25 Operational Strategy guiding the plan for the future. At present, Hood County has a “concept note” (found in Appendix 6) based on current operations with a vison towards next level P25 operations and support across Hood County and its neighboring partners with near real-time visibility, performance management and asset management represented by all agency stakeholders.

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This concept note should be developed into a detailed Hood County P25 Strategy and actionable Hood County P25 Operational Plan prior to either amending the Interlocal Agreement with the City of Granbury or simply rolling out Hood County P25 Common Core Equipment and related infrastructure under direct supervision and control of Hood County.

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Current Issues Hood County’s P25 operations is currently 100% dependent upon “core elements” (redundant P25 switching hardware called “Common Core Equipment”) owned by the City of Granbury and monitored by L3Harris, an outside third-party vendor. Due to agreements between L3Harris and the City of Granbury, monitoring of “managed points” (e.g., alarms, alerts, contacts, thresholds, etc.) are limited to L3Harris SOC, NOC and designated City of Granbury personnel for all GRRN related assets including Common Core Equipment, RF Tower monitored assets (only those contracted to L3Harris), terrestrial networking (back up circuits), software, firewalls and related security appliances and City radios.

When monitored elements trigger an event, the vendor and City will inspect and report on the severity of the event in accordance with their written agreement. Notice and notification to Hood County regarding said event or events is delayed due to two layers of possible “triage” before escalation to Hood County, if Hood County is notified at all.

The current Interlocal Agreement relies on a “Best Efforts” set of conditions loosely coupled to a response time of “three business days” for device (e.g., Hood County radio) change control (e.g., additions, modifications and removal of devices into the L3Harris provided Unified Administration System [UAS]).

The Interlocal Agreement is silent on any and all other contemplated “Service Level Agreements” relating to radio provisioning procedures themselves (other than an email address for requests) and more importantly, notice, notification and visibility into the rest of the GRRN system. This lack of near real-time visibility has blinded Hood County Dispatch, IT and EOC by withholding an independent “monitor only” view into P25 system asset performance and management.

The City of Granbury relies 100% on L3Harris “quick identification” (quantitatively undefined) of Network Issues and Security Incidents and L3Harris’ commitment to then “work with the customer to create a corrective action plan” for all GRRN Maintenance and Monitoring Services provided by L3Harris.

Note: the “customer” is the City of Granbury, not Hood County. Thus, the City of Granbury actually has the responsibility to notify Hood County to address issues (at their discretion) relating to all situations that may impact the availability and performance of Hood County P25 Radio Services especially including those areas such as recent HVAC overheating matters at a tower site that “degraded” the City’s services but resulted in an outage for Hood County and Somervell County.

It is believed that the City of Granbury has very competent staff to support the City of Granbury services, but are not staffed to support the broader Hood County agencies with nuanced operational obligations and mandates for mission critical P25 radio systems without additional funding and very detailed requirements via a comprehensive Hood County P25 Radio System Operation Plan with detailed Service Levels for everything supporting the Hood County infrastructure including facilities, structures, grounding, shielding, networking (wired & wireless), access control (physical & logical), software, integration, radios, etc.

It is recommended that Hood County develop their “next generation” P25 Digital Radio Strategy and detailed Operation Plan, identify vulnerabilities with existing assets (physical, logical, service agreements, etc.) at all current and contemplated (e.g., Cresson) locations, then establish a new comprehensive budget for determining to overlay Hood County’s own P25 infrastructure, or negotiate a revised agreement with GRRN with proper commercial terms and service levels.

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Existing Contracts Existing contracts can be categorized into two broad buckets:

1. Interlocal Agreement – Supports GRRN infrastructure provided by L3Harris only (e.g., the P25 digital fabric).

2. All other Hood County service provider contracts for towers, generators, facilities (HVAC, Lighting, Plumbing, UPS, grounding, shielding, etc.), IT networks (including circuits [wired & wireless], routers, firewalls, software, storage, etc.), dispatch, Emergency Operations Center (EOC), radios (fixed & mobile) and related service levels (performance management), asset management (including upgrades/enhancements/replacements) and training.

While it appears that the most “economical “approach is to outsource detailed P25 digital radio operations to the City of Granbury via amended agreement, it is impractical due to the lack of ability to state specific needs at a sensor or alarm level throughout all monitored points in Hood County supporting 23 agencies.

In this case, key vendors like L3Harris and others are likely to continue to serve Hood County but abstracted through the City of Granbury when Hood County could maintain a direct relationship with key vendors.

Hood County has a competent agile staff across many departments capable of supporting its own P25 Digital Radio network. However, this network would be considered an “overlay fabric” that requires all departments in Hood County to contribute to the success of the overall performance as software from facilities management, IT network management, Dispatch and EOC would need to be securely provisioned to display near real-time performance status to Dispatch, EOC and Mobile Dispatch.

Furthermore, all county “stakeholders” must have the agility to manage against their performance criteria documented in a comprehensive Hood County Plan such that they “own” the uptime, availability and security of critical components supporting the P25 system with “all eyes” monitoring from respective departments.

Collectively, these various departments may continue their own “best practices” while using the updated P25 Operations Plan as “functional requirements” to renegotiate with key vendors new service and support agreements working directly with Hood County and all related stakeholders.

This process is estimated to require about twenty-four (24) months from “concept-to-production” with tactical improvements possible along the way based on the age and condition of existing Hood County P25 digital assets (e.g., towers, shelters [Controlled Environmental Vaults – “CEVs”], terrestrial circuits, wireless circuits [e.g., Microwave, LTE, Satellite, Optical Fiber, etc.] active electronics, software and security appliances.

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Hood County Support Capabilities Hood County currently supports P25 today but is frustrated from the disconnect between having the “responsibility” of P25 services but limited in the “authority” to do much about preventative maintenance due to the lack of visibility or control over certain P25 Digital Radio assets buried within the fabric, particularly as it relates to “third-party” services (e.g. GRRN) and “third-party” CEVs housing active electronics.

Establishing an updated Hood County P25 Strategy along with a very detailed Hood County P25 Operations Plan including site specific details will define a higher level of “operational excellence” benchmarks for monitoring, managing, reporting, replacing and funding ongoing operations across a sustainable 20+ year horizon.

Assets may cycle through end-of-life periods, but the underlying performance in a resilient and highly available architecture should allow repair, replacements and enhancements without fully disrupting production services.

Additional staffing is not currently expected, but additional tools, technology, training and resources are required to assure proper access to resources for each Hood County staff member, regardless of who covers for whom during sick days, vacations, training and other “out of office” matters.

Today, institutional knowledge appears to be very manual with a heavy reliance upon written documents.

In the future, it is recommended that Hood County offer highly available and secure portals with tight authentication and access control lists to allow responsible parties (including third-party vendors) to access their digital resources, dashboards and tools from any authorized device or location.

The portal refers to secure digital repositories (& “digital twins” – virtualized asset details) for all mission critical assets leveraged in a Hood County P25 infrastructure including operational “run books” (SOPs, alarm & alert thresholds, notification procedures, escalation procedures, etc.), contracts, service levels, back up & recovery plans, business continuity plans and disaster recovery plans.

Hood County staff currently maintains similar information in a mix of manual binders and files across various departments.

Current Hood County staff interviewed and investigated are both competent and fully capable of embracing new tools relating to a properly upgraded “mission critical” P25 infrastructure for Hood County.

Refer to Appendix 2 for details on current Hood County technical and operations staff.

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Governance Hood County recognizes the importance of stable, consistent and always available P25 digital radio services.

During the past six or seven years, Hood County has been a very good steward of financial resources to keep citizens, visitors and travelers passing through the county safe. Hood County has demonstrated its desire to be a “good neighbor” and “friend” to all nearby cities and radio stakeholders including a current total of forty-three (43) agencies.

As the region continues to grow and expand, so must Hood County in its “operational maturity” model relating to supporting its mission critical P25 radio system.

Face-to-face communications with Hood County stakeholders are recommended via the establishment of a Next Generation Emergency Management Advisory Board with representation from the twenty-three (23) county agencies, and neighboring counties with tight controls around “voting members” and “non-voting members”.

Broadly, the Advisory Board establishes the Hood County P25 Strategy and Operations Plan while the Hood County Commissioners authorize funding for approved plans, where the Sheriff’s Department enforces the P25 Operations Plan. This basic “planning architecture” can scale to neighboring counties and agencies who chose to adapt and adopt “best practices” around all P25 mission critical components for the entire constituency under a Regional Advisory Board body of governance.

It is recommended to start from within Hood County to address immediate tactical and strategic needs.

Hood County welcomes agency stakeholder representatives from Erath and Somervell Counties to consider joining the Advisory Board. Each of these agency stakeholders will view the Hood County P25 fabric as a sort of P25-as-a-Service (PaaS), essentially a mission critical “P25 Cloud” Managed Service Offering similar to the GRRN but with collaborative input via the Advisory Board.

If agencies outside of Hood County are to join Hood County’s P25 “Cloud”, then a well-documented Hood County P25 Operations Plan must be put in place such that outside parties can best determine how to integrate their operations into this offering without compromising their values and “best practices”.

Each county will need to develop their own P25 Operational Plan, then determine how to scope the “handoffs”, dependencies, service levels, monitoring and management responsibilities to Hood County IT, Dispatch, Maintenance, EOC and others via a Hood County Interlocal Agreement that is actually structured based on a mature “P25-as-a-Service” offering.

Procedurally, it is recommended that the Advisory Board follow a disciplined framework such as Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) methodology such as Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (COBIT) to enhance mature and scalable operations with quantitative measuring and monitoring points.

COBIT is based on six key principles:

1. Meeting stakeholder needs

2. Covering Hood County P25 needs end-to-end

3. Applying a single integrated framework

4. Enabling a holistic approach

5. Separating governance from management

6. Tailoring to the specific needs of Hood County and all supported agencies

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COBIT has a Governance Framework known as the Process Reference Model (PRM) that describes a “COBIT Core Model” that can be adapted as a tool for the Advisory Board while following “agile sprints” to move rapidly from Hood County P25 Vision, Mission, Strategy, Plan, Asset Acquisition, Asset Configuration, and Asset Deployment to Operational Commissioning and Continuous Monitoring.

Governance objectives are distinct from Management objectives and must be clearly defined, agreed upon by all stakeholders and accepted by all stakeholders in order to avoid the kind of operational disconnects at

GRRN.

Using the COBIT model as a reference, Governance Objectives are grouped under five (5) areas of Evaluate, Direct and Monitor (EDM) including:

Ensured Governance Framework Setting and Maintenance Ensured Benefits Delivery Ensured Risk Optimization Ensured Resource Optimization Ensured Stakeholder Engagement

Management Objectives span four additional categories of activities, each with a subset of objectives for consideration including:

Align, Plan and Organize (APO) Build, Acquire and Implement (BAI) Deliver, Service and Support (DSS) Monitor, Evaluate and Assess (MEA)

Figure 6. below summarizes the integrated model that Hood County’s Advisory Board should consider mapping these areas against agency needs, then reducing complexity as much as possible while preserving highly available and resilient operational (business) and technical architectures.

Figure 6. - COBIT Process Reference Model Chart

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Looking ahead, it is possible that a Hood County operated P25 network could ultimately serve agencies in at least three counties, as follows:

Figure 7. - Possible Hood County P25 system configuration

In this case, each entity would have a role in Governance, with day-to-day management controlled by a technical and operational staff in Hood County.

Governance would include financial responsibilities of the participating parties, with an on-line “Open Books” accounting process.

It would also include day-to-day maintenance of the P25 equipment, interconnection networks, equipment shelter issues (access, HVAC, emergency power, fuel, etc.). Alarms and alerts should be available on a read-only, real-time basis at designated 24 hour dispatch locations.

Based on geography and skill sets, it is possible that responses to alerts, particularly physical/mechanical problems at tower sites, could be assigned to the closest resource.

Please see Appendix 6 - Hood County Radio Network – Proposed Governance Plan, which was originally proposed by the Hood County Emergency Management Coordinator, Margaret Campbell for a “strawman” Advisory Board concept note.

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Next Steps Work Plan This Matrix Work Plan for Hood County describes next steps (as required) to include much deeper dives into the nuts & bolts of the current “Radio System Ecosystem” and recommended steps for a transition to a “To Be” environment during the next 18-24 months.

Work Streams Purpose Key Activities Deliverables

Hood County P25 Asset Audit & Inventory

Digitally account for all physical, logical and virtual elements supporting P25 communications for Hood County today

• Identify coverage areas along with acceptable quality of service (QoS)

• Identify individual elements (assets)

• Identify the location (Lat/Long) of the asset

• Identify normal operating condition or state of asset

• Identify available settings/thresholds for alarms or alerts regarding the asset

• Identify ownership of the assets

• Identify the maintenance and support of the assets

• Identify ownership of the physical structure housing or supporting the asset

• Identify change control procedures for the asset

• Identify the remaining useful life of the asset

• Identify spares or replacement parts for the asset and related policy regarding mean time to repair

(MTTR)

An electronic repository by class or category for all assets supporting the operation and support of mission critical P25 services throughout Hood

County

Develop a P25 “Digital Twin” e.g., GIS Asset

Mapping

Link a database of P25 assets to a GIS based mapping tool

• Group by fixed asset site/location

• Group by administrative domain (e.g., facilities, IT, Dispatch, etc.)

• Identify single points of failure

• Identify key dependencies

• Identify near end of life (3 years or less remaining)

• Distinguish outside from inside assets

A digital twin of fixed assets supporting mission critical P25 assets for Hood County

Fast track a Hood County P25 Vision, Mission, Strategy and Detailed Operations

Plan

Align all Hood County P25 Stakeholders by including representatives into a working group to establish “Best Practice” SOPs for P25

• Stand up a Hood County Next Generation Emergency Management Advisory Board

• Gain quick consensus on P25 Vision, Mission and Strategy

• Adopt and adapt a reference framework such as COBIT for a wholistic and mission critical P25 offering

• Review all existing Standard Operating Procedures and refine enhanced “to be” for “Best Practices” o Document data ownership o Document data access controls o Document data backup, restoration and retention o Document Information Security (InfoSec)

Policies and Procedures for Hood County overall along with Key Management (Generation, Issuance, Revocation, Refreshing) for the P25 system and individual radios

• Consider all stakeholder “must haves” quantitatively measured vs subjective “nice to haves” and “futures” including drones, zones & remediation solutions

• Explore integrating the “digital twin” to a Hood County digital “run book” o Asset ownership o Asset monitoring o Asset aging/life-cycle remaining o Asset change control

A virtualized P25 environment supporting all identified stakeholders, SOPs, Business Continuity plans and Disaster

Recovery Plans

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Unit testing Integration testing Acceptance testing o Asset spares o Asset testing o Asset KPIs o Asset SLAs o Asset third-party contractors o Asset contracts o Business Continuity Plan o Disaster Recovery Plan

Budget for Hardened P25 Assets

Estimate Budgets for Upgrading, Enhancing and Diversifying P25

Assets and integrating them into a fully functional Hood County P25 System

• Investigate new tower sites

• Investigate site improvements

• Investigate redundancies in power, HVAC, network connectivity, monitoring and reporting (including mobile command)

• Investigate grounding, shielding and physical security

• Investigate logical security and access control

• Investigate new and emerging threats along with countermeasures (e.g. drones)

• Investigate amendments to existing contracts

• Investigate procurement processes for new contracts including RFQ and RFP

• Include annual Hood County employee training and cross training modules to include “train the trainer”

Comprehensive budget with contingencies for upgraded Hood County P25 services

Explore Purchasing GRRN & Overlaying the P25 Operational

Plan

Explore “Buy” vs “Build” Extend one last “olive branch” and attempt to negotiate the transfer of GRRN assets to Hood County, then upgrade for Hood County resiliency

Establish a “Go” or “No Go” posture for true P25 collaboration and partnership with the City of Granbury.

Develop a Functional Specification for a

“Mission Critical” Hood County P25 System

Develop a Comprehensive Hood County P25 Functional Requirement Document for either RFQ or RFP

Document Internal Roles & Responsibilities as those “owed” by Hood County’s Agencies and Stakeholders for day-to-day operations

Document External Roles & Responsibilities to be contracted o Define managed service offering(s) o Define “on demand” offerings o Define “ad hoc” offerings

Document new fixed assets required for Hood County (e.g., towers, CEVs, land line circuits, portal software, servers, storage, security devices, etc.)

Establish Timelines Establish Budgets Establish life-cycle costs for fixed assets and/or managed “assets as a service” Obtain project plans from third parties

Obtain competitive pricing for new Hood

County P25 fixed assets, related support and timing

Establish a P25 Program Plan with

Agile (“Sprint”) Methodologies

Develop an Integrated P25 Program Plan for

Hood County

Consolidate all projects into an integrated P25 Program (i.e. Hood County P25 Master Plan)

Establish critical path Gant Chart with third party dependencies

Document key milestones Document a Risk Register with Remediation Document contingencies for “roll back” Document quantitative acceptance criteria Document known costs with contingencies Document an agile roll out/deployment plan

Document alignment and consensus with the Hood County Advisory

Board

Deployment Initiate Agile Sprints Work the P25 Master Plan while mitigating operational risk

Critical Path Milestone Achievements with

Assets in Production

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Appendix 1 Hood County Radio Systems Strategy

“As Is” Review Summary

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Appendix 2 Hood County Systems Support Staff

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First Name Margaret Roger Shawn Tyler Last Name Campbell Deeds McGuire Brown

Department Emergency Management Office Sheriff's Office Sheriff's Office Sheriff's Office

Position/Title Emergnecy Management Coordinator Sheriff Emergency Communications Director Emergency Communications Operations

Manager

Background

Margaret has been in the Emergency Management field for 5 years.

We have had VHF, UHF and 700mhz duplex systems in Hood County that I have worked with.

I have programmed radios up until now with the new 700mhz trunking system, I do not have knowledge of programing of those and just know how they are supposed to work.

With 20+ years of experience in communications, Shawn has a great understanding of the communication needs both locally and regionally which allows him to plan for future needs, ensuring Hood County public safety officers have the tools they need when responding to calls.

Streamlined shift operations by implementing revised protocols, resulting in an increase in efficiency and a reduction in response times.

Developed and conducted advanced training programs for communications officers, enhancing team performance and ensuring adherence to departmental standards.

Facilitated effective communication between shifts and departments, fostering a collaborative work environment and improving overall operational coordination.

Improved partnership with the Hood County Emergency Management Department to improve the ECCs ability to respond to local disasters, as well as improve the understanding of the roles of ECC for the Emergency Management Department.

Oversaw implementation of L3Harris radio system, including tower sites, new radio consoles within the ECC, programming of handheld radios, and making changes to operational procedures based on the new technology.

Led the Emergency Communications Center to be awarded North Central Texas 911, Agency of the Year in 2022

Education

- Bachelor of Arts - Political Science

- Master of Arts - International Studies

- Naval Postgraduate School, Center for Homeland Defense and Security - REP

- Bachelor of Science - Criminal Justice

- Master of Science - National Security and Intelligence Studies

- Bachelor of Science - Science

- Master of Science - EMS Administration

Qualifications

Margaret's P25 radio related qualifications include:

- Reviewing and evaluating vendor contracts (Motorola, L3Harris, Tubessing, JTS, Daffan Air, etc.) to ensure each contract meets the needs of the county.

- Budgeting and justifying infrastructure upgrades (resiliency, interoperability).

- Creating multi-year capital improvement plans for radio tower hardening, backup dispatch, etc.

- Working to identify solutions to single points of failure in radio systems.

Shawn's qualifications include:

- Works with the Emergency Operations Center to maintain public safety in times of natural disaster, civil defense or during any nuclear accident at the local power plant.

-Ensuring radio plans support span-of-control and unity of command. Including talkgroups, channels, and templates.

- Creating radio usage policies.

- Creating multi-year capital improvement plans for radio tower hardening, backup dispatch, etc.

- Working to identify solutions to single points of failure in radio systems.

Experience

5 years of emergency management experience.

This includes:

- Leading or supporting ICS structures during disasters (wildfires, pandemics, severe weather incidents).

- Managing mutual aid agreements ensuring interagency & intergovernmental coordination.

- Designing tabletop exercises or full-scale drills.

- Authoring emergency operations plans (EOPs), emergency management procedures, and radio policies.

My experience started in the 1990's working on fire department radios then law enforcement radios. I became a Licensed Amateur radio operator. All of this gave me an understanding of radio operations, programing of simplex and duplex systems and radio frequencies.

Supervisor for Hood County Telecommunications Officers, disseminating all information received and ensuring that the information is given to the proper channels in a professional and timely fashion. Monitors and dispatches all radio communications for 11 radio bands. Receives calls for service from the public concerning emergency and non-emergency services over 48 phone lines. Inputs and updates all calls for service in Computer- Aided Dispatch system. Inputs and updates all information from Texas and National computer files. Maintains written logs, completes general office duties, and maintains records pertaining to law enforcement calls. Examines security cameras fed into the dispatch center from across the county. Field training officer for new telecommunications officers for call taker, county deputies, fire/medical, and city police.

Direct a team of 19 communications officers, ensuring they professionally managed emergency phone calls and accurately relayed information to deputies.

Efficiently dispatch police, fire, and EMS for both emergency and non-emergency calls by prioritizing responses and using Spillman Computer Aided Dispatch software with real-time data tracking.

Coordinate radio and telephone communications, providing first responders with timely updates based on caller information and computer data.

Oversee the recruitment process for new communications officers, including application review, conducting interviews, and managing the onboarding process.

Assist with budget management by making strategic purchasing decisions, adhering to budget projections, and optimizing resource use.

Certifications

CJIS

ICS-100 - Introduction to Incident Command System ICS-200 - Basic Incident Command System ICS-300 - Intermediate ICS for Expanding Incidents ICS 400 - Advanced ICS for Expanding Incidents ICS 700 - Introduction to National Incident Management Systems ICS 800 - Introduction to National Response Framework IS 909- Community Preparedness IS 317 - Introduction to CERTS IS 315 - CERT and the ICS IS 288 - Voluntary Organizations in Emergency Management IS 241 - Decision Making and Problem Solving IS 235 - Emergency Planning IS 230 - Fundamentals of Emergency Management

CJIS CJIS

Hostage Negotiations for Telecommunications, Emergency Medical Technician, 2019 Swift Water Rescue, Phase I and II, 2019 TCOLE Advanced Telecommunicator, 2018 Field Training Officer, 2017 TCOLE Intermediate Telecommunicator, 2016 Basic Tactical Dispatcher, 2016 TCOLE Basic Telecommunicator, 2015 Crisis Communications Telecommunicator, Command Master Chief/Chief of the Boat, 2012 Senior Enlisted Academy, 2010 Crew-served Weapons Instructor, 2006 Small Arms Marksmanship Instructor, 2005 Basic / Journeyman Instructor, 2005

CJIS

Certified Public-Safety Executive Program | Association of Public Safety Communications Officials, 2025 Registered Public Safety Leader | Association of Public Safety Communications Officials, 2023 Master Telecommunicator | Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, 2022 Paramedic Certification | Weatherford College, Emergency Number Professional | National Emergency Number Association, 2020 Center Manager Certification Program | National Emergency Number Association, 2018 Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce | North Central Regional Academy, Basic Instructor | Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, 2017 Background Investigator Training | Tarrant County 911, 2016 Spillman CAD Administrator | Spillman Technologies, 2016 Emergency Medical Dispatch Quality Assurance, National Incident Management System (IS-100, IS-200, 300,400, IS-700, IS-800)

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First Name Travis Mike Steve Chris Last Name Watkins Salgado Graeff Luerson

Department Sheriff's Office Sheriff's Office Information Technology Information Technology

Position/Title Radio Systems Administrator SO IT Specialist IT Director IT Manager

Background

Travis began his career in wireless communications in April of 2006, upgrading AT&T cellular sites to 3G radios, and integrating with the 1G/2G systems. Continued through subsequent upgrades including 4G/LTE, 5G and

DAS.

- Travis has worked with many different technologies and standards, including TDMA, GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, LTE, DAS

- Travis is still learning the LMR system, but has been working with it since November 2023.

I began my career with the Department of Justice as an IT Specialist participating with a team responsible for managing mainframe hardware configuration, installation, customizing and maintaining various mainframe operating systems and third-party system software.

Ensured that our IBM mainframes and operating system are available and operating to meet service level requirements 24/7 with minimal disruption

The IT staff are experienced IT Network Engineers, Network Administrators, Server Administrators, and IT hardware technicians.

We currently support the CJIS server and the network connection to the City for Spillman.

Education

- high school diploma

- college credits in electrical engineering

- Bachelor of Science - Computer Information Systems

Qualifications

L3Harris P25 programming courses. Travis is authorized to work in various L3Harris environments including UAS, Activity Warehouse and Regional Network Manager.

Worked with various hardware and software vendors on installation/configuration issues and to resolve hardware/software failures as they arise in a rapid and reliable time that does not disrupt customer workload.

- Collected data from SMF and other mainframe subsystems for JCL and other job streams to produce billing reports for DOJ management.

Install and maintain the following system software: HSM, KOMAND, and IBM’s SCRT, CA-

TMS.

- Worked with MVS Catalogs; Wrote REXX scripts for processing data and generating reports;

Used OPS/MVS to monitor and automate jobs;

Used TSO/ISPF software to create, store, print, and delete datasets, as well as to submit and view jobs; Used JCL to execute mainframe jobs.

- Set up workstations for employee use, performing or ensuring proper installation of cable, operating systems, and that the correct software is installed for employee use.

With several years of IT network experience, all of my team are qualified to be IT professionals in their roles. I personally am CompTIA Network+ certified.

Senior Network Engineer

Experience

Over 12 years working in all aspects of wireless communications systems, including cellular, microwave and LMR.

Stacking towers, installing BTS, L&A, C&I, proper grounding standards, DC power systems, project management, site…