Drafter

Clerk 02/17/2021

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A MOTION approving the Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network operator articles of incorporation and proposed bylaws to provide policies and rules for the conduct of meetings, proceedings and business for the Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network Operator board of directors.

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                     WHEREAS, King County currently has a countywide emergency public safety radio network.  The King County Emergency Radio Communication System ("KCERCS") supports over seventeen thousand radios and nearly two hundred separate police, fire, emergency medical and other governmental agencies, and

                     WHEREAS, KCERCS is over twenty years old and is increasingly unsupported by the supplier of the system's equipment, software and related parts, and

                     WHEREAS, the cities of Auburn, Bellevue, Federal Way, Issaquah, Kent, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Redmond, Renton, Seattle and Tukwila and King County ("the parties") determined that it is in the public interest that a new public safety radio system, referred to as the Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network ("PSERN"), be implemented to provide public safety agencies and other user groups in the region with improved coverage and capacity, as well as uniformly high-quality radio communications, and

                     WHEREAS, the parties entered the Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network Implementation Period Interlocal Cooperation Agreement ("the implementation period ILA") that designates King County as the lead agency for planning, procurement, financing, implementation and limited operation of PSERN.  The implementation period ILA also establishes a Joint Board to oversee the PSERN project implementation, and

                     WHEREAS, the owners of KCERCS each agreed to make their 800 MHz frequencies available to the PSERN project to be used in the new PSERN system and to eventually be licensed in the name of the Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network Operator, and

                     WHEREAS, the parties have negotiated a separate agreement, the Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network Operator Interlocal Cooperation Agreement ("PSERN Operator ILA"), to create a new separate governmental agency under RCW 39.34.030(3)(b) that is organized as a nonprofit corporation under chapter 24.06 RCW to assume the ownership and control of PSERN following full system acceptance, and

                     WHEREAS, in addition to creating the new agency to be called the Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network Operator ("PSERN Operator"), the PSERN Operator ILA establishes the terms for governance of the PSERN Operator and the terms under which the PSERN Operator will undertake responsibility for the ownership, operations, maintenance, management and ongoing upgrading and replacing of the PSERN system during its useful life, and

                     WHEREAS, the PSERN Operator will be established approximately eighteen months before the anticipated date for full system acceptance.  That will require the filing of incorporation documents with the Washington Secretary of State, the designation of governing board members by the parties to the PSERN Operator ILA, and agreement on and filing of other documents such as bylaws.  The goal is to have the operator ready to assume these functions upon full system acceptance, and

                     WHEREAS, the oversight and policy-setting body for the PSERN Operator is the PSERN Operator board of directors.  When appointed, the board of directors will adopt bylaws and submit articles of incorporation that have been approved by the PSERN Project Joint Board and are proposed to be approved by the metropolitan King County council and the PSERN Operator board of directors;

                     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT MOVED by the Council of King County:

                     The articles of incorporation for the PSERN Operator, Attachment A to this

motion, and the PSERN Operator board of directors bylaws, Attachment B to this motion, are approved.