Orange County Moves Forward on Mobile Command Vehicle for Emergency Response

Orange County took the first step toward replacing its aging emergency management mobile command vehicle Wednesday, when the Public Safety and Emergency Services Committee of the county legislature approved a $2.4 million purchase.

County EMS Commissioner Peeter Cirigliano II made clear the existing vehicle has outlived its usefulness. "It's end of life on technology, hardware, software, integration – as you know the technology is graphicly evolving in emergency services and compatibility with our existing 911 system. We need to make sure that they talk hand-in-hand," he told lawmakers.

The new vehicle would serve as a mobile hub for incident command, communications, and multi-agency coordination, deployable directly to the scene of a major emergency rather than relying solely on fixed infrastructure. For a county that regularly contends with severe weather, large-scale accidents, and the coordination demands of dozens of municipalities and first-responder agencies, that kind of field-deployable capability carries real operational weight.

Cirigliano noted that other area counties are also in the process of upgrading their mobile command centers to keep pace with rapidly advancing technology, suggesting Orange County's move is part of a broader regional push to modernize incident management tools before interoperability gaps widen further.

The committee vote in Goshen advances the proposal but does not finalize the purchase; the full county legislature would need to give final approval before the acquisition moves to procurement. The $2.4 million price tag reflects both the complexity of modern command vehicle builds and the communication and integration systems required to mesh with existing 911 infrastructure.

If the full legislature signs off, Orange County would join neighboring jurisdictions in fielding a next-generation platform capable of supporting the kind of multi-agency response that major incidents increasingly demand.