The Auburn City Council on Monday night unanimously approved the City’s participation in the proposed Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network System.

The vote authorizes Mayor Nancy Backus to negotiate and execute interlocal agreements with King County and the cities of Bellevue, Federal Way, Issaquah, Kent, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Redmond, Renton, Seattle and Tukwila.

Police, fire and emergency responders of all kinds in all these jurisdictions rely on King County’s present radio system every minute of every day to do their jobs.

But the present King County system’s provider, the Motorola Company, has already told King County that after 2017, it will no longer support the 20-year-old equipment that constitutes the county’s present emergency radio system.

Although King County expects to put a bond issue out to taxpayers sometime next April to pay for up-to-date equipment — also to be provided by Motorola — it is too early in the game to say exactly how much the county will ask for.

In addition to new equipment, King County has talked about replacing today’s multiple networks with a single network, thereby putting all the groups now taking advantage of King County’s Valley Com under one umbrella for the establishment, implementation and operation of the network.

Two boards will be in charge of the nonprofit that runs the network: an administrative board, made up of mayors and the chief executive officers of the different cities; and a technical board, constituted of police and fire chiefs and other user groups.