2004 AGN MAY 04 Informational - Laserfiche WebLink

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City of Colton INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM TO: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council FROM: Daryl Parrish, City Manager_cY Dilu de Alwis, Finance Director F� SUBJECT: City of Colton — Cellular Phone Policy DATE: April 27, 2004 Currently the City of Colton utilizes the services of Nextel for cellular services, and is serviced under a plan that calls for a pool of 38,000 anytime minutes plus 31,000 "Direct Connect' (push to talk) minutes. Since moving into this plan, the City has not exceeded the total number of minutes resulting in additional payments. It must be noted that there are few users that go over the allotted 400 minutes per phone however this does not result in extra charges since in total we stay below the pooled minutes. Based on communications from the City Council regarding unsatisfactory services from the Nextel cellular phone devises currently in use, staff has looked into some of the services that are currently available in the market place. Based on recommendations from some members, staffed evaluated and compared the following vendors: Sprint PCS, Verizon Wireless, Cingular and Nextel (current service provider). The matrix that is attached to this memorandum explains the results of this evaluation including costs. Nextel users among City staff were polled and the majority indicated that they were satisfied with the services currently received from Nextel. Switching out all current Nextel users to another service provider will be cost prohibitive at this time. However if the City Council so desires, their seven phones can be either switched to a different service provider or to its own pooled plan within the Nextel service. Staff would also recommend that the City Council discuss the possibility of a fixed cell phone allowance, which would give each member the freedom to choose any plan they desire. We look forward to your direction in this matter.