When the phone system currently used at Sault Ste. Marie's Civic Centre was first installed, Brian Mulroney was Canada's prime minister.
Ronald Reagan was U.S. president.
In Switzerland, an English computer scientist named Tim Berners-Lee was just starting to talk about an idea that turned into the World Wide Web.
Tonight, city councillors will be asked to allocate $600,000 to replace City Hall's Cold War-era telephonics.
"Our current system is very old," says Malcolm White, deputy chief administrative officer for corporate services,
"It's over 30 years. It still runs on copper wiring over to the old switching station at the Bell establishment on Bruce Street. It's quite frankly beyond the end of its useful life," White told a Monday-night budget meeting of City Council.
"The contract for the service comes up this year in July. We generally sign five-year contracts for the best available cost. Obviously we need to look at a better system now," White told the meeting, which ended early because of an electrical power distruption.
"It is a system that costs us a fair amount of money to maintain each year. Servicing costs are about $180,000. We do expect to see some significant savings in that operating cost with a new system."
White said the city will be looking at all possible telecommunications solutions, including cell-phone-only systems and voice-over Internet protocol (VOIP).
Possible savings are estimated at $75,000 a year.
"Whatever's out there, we'll take a look at," White said.
Last night's interrupted meeting will continue today.
Councillors will be trying to shave down a preliminary budget calling for a 3.57 per cent increase in municipal taxes.
Some items were removed last night from this year's budget request:
- $30,000 worth of customer-service training for front-line staff, originally requested by City Council, will postponed until next year to allow a comprehensive training plan including other staff training needs
- $35,000 to implement close-captioning of City Council meeting. Also requested by City Council, this item will be reviewed in terms of the city's pending information technology overhaul. A primitive form of close-captioning is currently available on SooToday's City Council replays but these don't meet accessibility standards
- $120,000 in proposed spending related to labourer/carpenter labour relations may deferred as the province has proposed new legislation relevant to the issue
The meeting will be livestreamed on SooToday starting at 4:30 p.m.