Snohomish County 911 briefs Lake Stevens council on radio upgrade, RTIC and sales-tax funding

Snohomish County 9‑1‑1 deputy director Terry Peterson and executive director Kurt Mills told the Lake Stevens City Council on Nov. 25 that voters approved a sales‑tax measure in 2018 (enacted in 2019) to fund a countywide radio replacement and ongoing maintenance.

Kurt Mills described the agency’s role and scale: “We support all the local police, fire, EMS agencies in the County. We handle all the police, fire, medical dispatching,” and he said the center handles roughly 1,500–2,000 calls per day. Mills said the consolidated radio project went live in May and the project team expects to underspend the original budget.

Mills showed draft pie-chart figures he said were drawn from a community‑impact report: roughly 60% of the emergency-communications sales tax collected since 2019 went to the radio project that recently went live, and 21% is being accumulated to fund the next generation of radio infrastructure. He described a 15‑year forecast that includes a possible $92 million replacement around 2037 and an interim subscriber‑equipment replacement option in 2031.

Terry Peterson explained procurement and vendor arrangements and noted the agencies received shared equipment benefits; he said Lake Stevens Police received 84 new radios valued in the aggregate at about $500,000, which he used as an example of cost savings from the shared procurement model.

The presentation also described a Real‑Time Intelligence Center (RTIC) pilot that aggregates sensors, license‑plate reader alerts, body‑worn camera and drone feeds into a single view for authorized agencies. In response to questions from council members and residents about privacy and public access, staff said RTIC data and drone footage are subject to public‑records law and access is governed by authorization rules and policies. Mills said the pilot has run a few days a week and produced operational benefits, including a rescue where a drone helped find a person lost in a blackberry thicket.

Mills and Peterson said the sales‑tax initiative (Proposition 1) was approved as a continuing (no‑sunset) revenue source and that funds are used for both long‑term capital (radio) and to offset some ongoing operational costs so member agencies pay less directly.

Council members asked several follow‑up questions on privacy and the balance between new capabilities and transparency; Mills said the agency is preparing a community impact report for board review and public release.