Opening Comments
Good morning and welcome to the city building. My name is Terry Feaster and I am the current Alarm Administrator for the City of Wichita.

The purpose of this meeting is to explain changes that were made to the Alarm Systems Ordinance in March of 99, and how those changes will affect the alarm businesses operating within the City of Wichita. I will begin with a short history of the ordinance, and then discuss the ordinance changes and how the city will implement the changes. After the presentation, you will be given an opportunity to ask questions.

The implementation process will take a cooperative effort between the city, the alarm businesses, and Electronic Data Systems Corporation (EDS), the company hired by the city to implement the changes to the Alarm Systems Ordinance. You will be given the opportunity to meet Carol Puckett, the EDS project manager a little later in the meeting. She will assist me in answering some of the questions that you may have regarding the implementation process.

History
As a little history, before we discuss the changes to the ordinance, the City of Wichita has had an Alarm Systems Ordinance since January 1985. The purpose of the ordinance is to reduce the number of false alarms generated each day within the City of Wichita so emergency personnel will be free to respond to real emergencies. As a general rule, 99% of the alarm dispatches called into the Emergency Communications Center on a daily basis are false alarms. Many of these false alarms are due to:

• Accidental tripping of the alarm,

• A pet tripping the alarm,

• Initial testing of the equipment,

• Improperly installed or adjusted equipment, or

• Faulty equipment.

Whatever the reason, Wichita emergency personnel resources are dispatched to each alarm called into the Emergency Communications Center by an alarm business. Emergency personnel were dispatched to over 32,000 false alarm activations last year. In light of the current events in our country today, and the publicized events that have occurred in our city in the past year, it should be very clear that the city’s emergency personnel need to be available and ready to respond to, and investigate the real emergencies that will and do occur in our city. It is believed that the changes made to the Alarm Systems Ordinance will reduce the number of false alarm dispatches within the city.

Ordinance Changes
So, what are the changes that the city has made to the Alarm Systems Ordinance? The short answer is: the city will require alarm users to be registered with the city if the alarm users request law enforcement personnel as the first response to an activated alarm system and the city will require alarm users to be educated regarding the Alarm Systems Ordinance and its purpose: to reduce the number of false alarms in our city.

Many of you received by mail, a summary of the changes or a summary of the entire Alarm Systems Ordinance within the past couple of weeks. At this time, I am going to review the changes and how they will affect the alarm businesses operating in the city.

Summary of Significant Changes

1. When an alarm user elects to have law enforcement personnel as the first response to an activated alarm system, it shall be the responsibility of the alarm business to:

   1. Provide the alarm user, at the time of the lease or installation of the alarm system, a written copy of the City’s false alarm penalties and procedures.

   2. Forward to the city treasurer a copy of the City’s false alarm penalties and procedures signed by the alarm user, acknowledging that the user understands how to operate the alarm system and also understands the City’s billing system for false alarms.

   3. Register, with the city treasurer, each alarm system monitored by the business, prior to commencement of monitoring. The registration fee is ten dollars ($10.00) per alarm user.

   4. Notify the city treasurer of termination of monitoring and changes in ownership of property.

   5. Re-register alarm users any time they change monitoring businesses or residences. Alarm user registrations are not transferable.

   6. Attempt to contact alarm user by telephone, prior to contacting the communications center, to verify that the alarm is valid.

   7. Provide the alarm user’s permit number, name and address when contacting the communications center.

      Only those alarm users that request law enforcement personnel as the first response after an alarm activation are required to be registered. If an alarm user elects private security personnel as the first response, pre-registration is not necessary. If private security personnel respond to an alarm and determine the alarm is a valid alarm that requires law enforcement personnel to respond, the private security personnel may contact the communications center to request assistance at no charge to the alarm user or alarm company.

2. False alarm response fees assessed to alarm users:

   • $28.00 for each residential or nonresidential false alarm

   • $40.00 for each residential duress or holdup false alarm

   • $60.00 for each non-residential duress or holdup false alarm

3. If an alarm is received by the communications center from an alarm system, which has not been registered with the city, an administrative penalty of one hundred fifty dollars ($150.00) shall be assessed against the alarm business that notifies the communication center to dispatch to the unregistered alarm address. The city encourages all alarm businesses to offer private security personnel, as the first response for all alarm users, to assist in the reduction of false alarms received by the communications center.

4. An alarm business license may be revoked if it is determined that an alarm business failed to pay more than one thousand dollars ($1,000) in administrative penalties as required by the ordinance.

5. All appeals for response fees or administrative penalties must be submitted in writing within thirty (30) days of the date of the first invoice for the alarm, and be accompanied by a ten dollar ($10.00) administrative fee. In the event of determination that no response fee should be assessed, or if the administrative penalty appeal is granted, the ten dollar ($10.00) administrative fee shall be refunded.

6. Every person who violates any of the provisions of Chapter 3.40 Alarm System shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars ($500). Each day any violation of this chapter continues shall constitute a separate offense.

7. In addition to the one hundred dollar ($100.00) annual application fee, each alarm business shall submit payment of all outstanding administrative penalties as a requirement of completing the application process.

8. The Police Department will be responsible for enforcing the Alarm Systems Ordinance.

Implementation
The city has hired EDS to implement the changes to the Alarm Systems Ordinance. EDS will be responsible for:

1. Registering all alarm users that request law enforcement personnel as the first response to an alarm activation.

2. Providing registration forms and materials to the alarm businesses.

3. Invoicing alarm users for fees associated with false alarms.

4. Invoicing alarm businesses for fees associated with dispatching to a non-registered alarm user address.

5. Providing media advertising to inform alarm businesses of the need to register alarm users.

6. Providing media advertising to inform alarm users about the city’s Alarm System Ordinance and the consequences of false alarms.

As we begin the registration process, EDS will provide alarm businesses with the format for submitting current alarm user information. EDS will assign permit numbers during this process. For on-going registration, alarm businesses will purchase blocks of alarm user permit numbers in advance and assign the city permit number to the alarm user. A minimum of ten (10) permit numbers will be issued per request.

After the initial registration of current alarm users, alarm businesses will be required to complete the permit registration form at the time an alarm user that requests law enforcement personnel as the first response to an alarm activation, is signed up for monitoring services. EDS will provide the registration forms. If the alarm business contracting with the alarm user to provide monitoring service is not the actual monitoring business, it will be necessary for the alarm monitoring business to coordinate the registration of the alarm user when it’s services are contracted to the alarm user. It is the alarm monitoring business that will be invoiced the $150 administrative penalty for calling the Emergency Communications Center to dispatch to a non-registered alarm user.