Title
Consider approving Resolution No. 2014-021 authorizing the creation of the North Texas Emergency Communications Center, Inc. as a Local Government Corporation; approving the form of Certificate of Formation and Bylaws for said Corporation; and take appropriate action.
Body
BACKGROUND:
For the last 2+ years, the Town of Addison and Cities of Carrollton, Coppell, and Farmers Branch ("the Cities") have been working together pursuant to a series of interlocal cooperation agreements to jointly purchase, install, maintain, and operate a new 900 megahertz, digital radio system for emergency communications for use by the Cities' police, fire, and EMS departments. Concurrently, after a joint study conducted by the Cities which has previously been presented to the City Councils of all four Cities, the Cities have been working cooperatively to consolidate their public safety dispatching operations into a single call center. One of the recommendations of the study on consolidated dispatching was to place the operation under the management of a separate organization jointly created by the Cities and controlled by the Cities through a board of directors consisting of the city managers of each of the Cities. To that end, the Cities entered into an interlocal cooperation agreement effective January 27, 2014, agreeing to move forward with creation of a local government corporation for constructing, developing, managing, and operating a public safety communications center and other joint projects as authorized by the Cities from time to time.
DISCUSSION:
Resolution No. 2014-021 authorizes the creation of a local government corporation to be known as the "North Texas Emergency Communications Center, Inc." ("NTECC) and approves the form of Certificate of Formation and Bylaws for the corporation. The resolution also provides for the appointment of the city manager to serve as an initial director to the NTECC board of directors.
The key provisions of the Certificate of Formation and Bylaws are:
· NTECC will initially be governed by a four member board of directors consisting of the four city managers.
· By law, NTECC will be subject to the Texas Open Meetings Act and Public Information Act.
· The NTECC Board of Directors will have authority to hire an executive director, who will manage NTECC operations.
· All matters before the NTECC Board of Directors must be decided by a majority of the entire board (i.e. 3 out of 4).
· The Bylaws provide for creation of an "Operations Advisory Committee" consisting of the Fire Department and Police Department chiefs from each City (or designees) that will develop policies and procedures to be adopted by the Board of Directors relating to dispatch operations.
· The Cities are provided an opportunity to review and approve the NTECC annual budget.
· NTECC will not be able to issue debt without approval of the Cities.
The other three cities have already approved their counterpart to Resolution No. 2014-021 (Carrollton on February 18, 2014; Addison and Coppell on February 25, 2014). Following approval of Resolution No. 2014-021, the certificate of formation will be signed and filed with the Texas Secretary of State in order to create the corporation. Within the next month or two, an operations agreement, which will set out the financial and operational terms amongst the parties, will be negotiated among the Cities and NTECC presented to city councils of all of the Cities for approval.
RECOMMENDATION:
City Administration recommends approving Resolution No. 2014-021 authorizing the creation of the North Texas Emergency Communications Center, Inc. as a Local Government Corporation and approving the form of Certificate of Formation and Bylaws for said Corporation.
ACTIONS:
1) Motion to approve Resolution No. 2014-021 authorizing the creation of the North Texas Emergency Communications Center, Inc. as a Local Government Corporation and approving the form of Certificate of Formation and Bylaws for said Corporation.
2) Motion to deny Resolution No. 2014-021 authorizing the creation of the North Texas Emergency Communications Center, Inc. as a Local Government Corporation and approving the form of Certificate of Formation and Bylaws for said Corporation.
3) Motion to modify to meet the needs of the Council.
4) Motion to table the issue for further study or take no action.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. Resolution No 2014-021