(Reuters)
The spat between City Hall and the Port Authority over the design of a unified radio system for cops and firefighters at the new World Trade Center is costing taxpayers a cool $12 million, The Post has learned.
That’s because while the PA is building its own controversial radio system at the WTC — at a separate cost of $130 million to the bi-state agency — the city, rather than join in, is plunking down $12 million to unilaterally expand its own communications system at the site.
The city dough will come from money from federal counterterrorism grants already dispatched to Albany, sources said.
The debacle has left some city officials and cops concerned that having two systems will lead to disastrous communication glitches such as the ones that occurred on 9/11. Homeland Security higher-ups also are worried.
“I would like to understand what’s going on there,” New York state Homeland Security czar Jerry Hauer told The Post.
“The ability to communicate at big incidents is essential,” he said. “Around the state, as [future] grant money goes out, we are putting a requirement in place that all radios purchased with grant money have to have state, local and federal inter-operable frequencies.”
Investigations into the Sept. 11 terror attacks found communications was a key problem that day. Probers said an untold number of first responders might have been saved when the towers fell if they had been able to communicate better.
Instead, many rescuers were caught in the collapse even after evacuate orders had been issued.
The Post reported a year ago that the PA — which owns and operates the WTC — was embarking on its massive communications expenditure despite repeated objections from NYPD brass and the PA’s own police union that it would not be compatible with other systems.
PA spokesman Steve Coleman told The Post that the agency and NYPD “will continue our ongoing dialogue” and insisted that the “system we are installing . . . will link emergency responders,” though he would not elaborate.
Some officials have made no secret that they fear a future disaster.
The Port Authority “is wasting public money on something that’s not taking care of a problem,” said Robert Egbert, a spokesman for the PA police union. “We all recognize that in order to have a proper response, you have to be able to communicate.”
City Hall and the NYPD declined to comment.