Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


**Story updated 3:24pm Wednesday to include county response.


The Brighton Area Fire Authority and some local municipalities are calling on the Livingston County Board of Commissioners to step up and fund a reliable, fully-functioning emergency communications system for the sake of public safety.

Local officials maintain issues have been well known by the county for over a decade, and now public safety is at stake.

The Brighton Area Fire Authority Board approved a resolution asserting that it is charged with the “solemn duty” of providing fire protection, rescue, and emergency medical services to protect the lives and property of citizens in the City of Brighton, and Brighton and Genoa Townships. It states the ability to perform those duties is critically dependent upon a reliable and fully functional emergency communications system - including the VHF paging system operated by Livingston County Central Dispatch for the primary purpose of alerting both fire and EMS personnel who are on-call and on-duty personnel of emergencies.

The primary VHF paging system is said to have experienced significant and repeated failures.

The resolution states “this degradation of public safety communications infrastructure falls below acceptable operational standards and poses a direct and immediate threat to the safety of the public and our first responders”. The Authority further “declares the current state of the Livingston County public safety communication system to be critically unreliable and a significant public safety concern requiring immediate and decisive action”.

On Monday night, the Brighton Township Board approved the resolution unanimously, 6-0.

The full resolutions and agenda notes are attached.

Brighton Township Clerk Joe Riker told WHMI it’s been an issue for a decade or more, and they are no closer now than they were then to fixing the problem. He provided the following statement:

“The safety of our residents should be a major concern to all, and it seems as if it falls on deaf ears at the county due to the price tag, and the answer seems to always be, “We don’t have money”. Meanwhile, the county touts that we have the lowest property taxes in the state, but at what cost? Below par emergency services, at no fault of our brave men and women in uniform, but at the county, who have been told for years by our first responders that we have a major problem. I say this with no disrespect to any individual commissioner, but the commission as a whole is responsible for this mess, and it's their duty to fix this. This completely avoidable problem needs funding now, not later. The can has been kicked so far down the road already, it's now time. I truly hope this gets resolved before a tragedy happens, and then the resident asks why nobody responded to my calls for help. My answer will simply be, because we have the lowest property taxes in the state.”

It’s expected that resolutions will be placed on agendas in other municipalities in the weeks ahead. Some include Hamburg, Green Oak, Iosco, and Genoa Townships; along with the City of Howell.

The Genoa Township Board of Trustees met Monday night and Supervisor Kevin Spicher reported the plan is to have the item on the agenda at their next meeting. He said he felt it would be beneficial to sit down with the chief and their commissioner to be better brought up to speed, adding it’s something he feels they need to consider addressing but wants more information.

Trustee Todd Walker, who serves as the BAFA Board Vice Chair, commented the other big update on that Authority meeting agenda that “really hit home” to him was an update regarding the incident on westbound I-96 where a fire department vehicle was struck. He said communication situations negatively affected the ability of people to respond to that secondary crash, in which the vehicle was struck. A firefighter was injured and hospitalized, and later released.


The Hamburg Township Board met Tuesday night and expressed strong support before unanimously approving a resolution in which the Public Safety Department asserts the system is “critically unreliable”.

Clerk Mike Dolan updated the board, saying he could go on and on with countless scenarios and episodes that have been shared. He cited one instance of transmitters being sent out to 50 paid on-call individuals to respond to an emergency but only 5 received the call because of the system being broken down.

Dolan went on to say his understanding is that when the county received over $30 million in ARPA funds, for whatever reason, they decided it was not a worthy investment and spent the money elsewhere. Additionally, he stated the county can levy up to $3 for emergency fees on cell phones but are only levying $1.85. Dolan said he appreciates low tax rates very much but doesn’t want to do it in the name of risking public safety for both their citizens and first responders.


Comments from Board Chairman Jay Drick:

The Board of Commissioners recently authorized a Request for Proposals to receive information and proposals to significantly upgrade the number of public safety communication towers in the County. Those proposals are currently under review by a committee of local public safety officials.

911 Central Dispatch has reported that the VHF simulcast system, and the back-up system, is operable, but does need maintenance which we are in the process of securing through the vendor. The County is working to ensure that the system is fully operational as intended. In 2023, the Board of Commissioners approved a request to repair the VHF system and will certainly review any additional needs associated with the system.

The Board of Commissioners also approved the purchase of new EMS computer-aided dispatching software in late 2024. The Board of Commissioners has and will continue to invest in public safety upgrades.

When the Board of Commissioners invited requests for ARPA funding back in 2022, concerns regarding the VHF system and communication tower expansion were not shared at that time, but have subsequently been brought forward. Communication tower expansion is a significant, multi-million-dollar expenditure and the Board of Commissioners has been preparing financially to be in a position to make these upgrades.

The Board of Commissioners has given and will continue to give special attention to 911, communication towers, computer-aided dispatch systems, and other public safety needs while relying on the reports and guidance of our subject matter experts.