1-26-2008 New Jersey:
PLAINFIELD -- City police, firefighters and politicians Friday publicly unveiled the Police Division's new high-tech Mobile Command Center, a Winnebago-style contraption replete with LCD televisions, a rotating surveillance camera and a deluxe stainless-steel electric toilet that incinerates waste with the push of a button.
In all of its flashing and whirring glory, the 21,200-pound vehicle idled in front of City Hall as a generator powered its multiple telephones, computers and high-powered lights, as well as a TV/VCR/DVD system and retractable awning.
A 40-inch monitor with a SMART Board overlay -- a touch-sensitive white board of sorts -- sits in a conference room in the rear of the 33-foot vehicle. The interactive screen is connected to a laptop computer, allowing authorities to save and transport their work.
Take a few steps toward the middle of the command center to find three workstations with laptops, flat-screen monitors and telephones sitting next to one another on an adjustable section of the vehicle that broadens its 10-foot width by another two feet when expanded. Behind the passenger seat, or supervisor's chair, lies a control panel that can manipulate, among other gadgets, the surveillance camera that towers above the rear of the wagon that is 12 feet, 6 inches high.
Officials touted the vehicle's features Friday morning as they held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and invited onlookers inside for a brief tour. The rolling command center arrived in Plainfield on Jan. 10 from the Columbus, Ohio, home of its manufacturer, Farber Specialty Vehicles.
Police Capt. Siddeeq El-Amin, credited with shepherding the city's pursuit of the $225,000 vehicle, said he began exploring the possibility of securing a mobile command center after the city received $75,000 through the federal Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Grant. Once Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs took office in 2006 and voiced her support, El-Amin said, the city received another grant through the same federal program, this one worth $40,000.
Add more than $100,000 of additional funding from Union County's asset forfeiture fund, and the shiny white vehicle came to Plainfield without taking a dime from city coffers, officials said.
El-Amin said the command center could be dispatched in the event of a riot, hostage situation, severe weather or multiple-alarm fire. The vehicle, which bears the seals of the city's Police Division, Fire Division and Office of Emergency Management, will be available to all of the city's first responders, authorities said.
As the police chiefs of North Plainfield and South Plainfield looked on, city officials said during Friday's ceremony that the command center also will respond to emergencies in neighboring towns. In addition, El-Amin said, authorities plan to use the vehicle as a community outreach tool during local events.
"This is a magnificent new addition to our public safety fleet," Robinson-Briggs said. "It's an additional, proactive step to deter drug, crime and gang activity in the city of Plainfield." ..more.. by Brandon Lausch can be reached at (908) 707-3175 or blausch@c-n.com.
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