FARMINGTON – Commissioners tabled discussion on a proposal to purchase a new console for the Franklin County Communications Center in order to seek more information Tuesday.
The county has been addressing issues with its communications system over the past several months, with issues ranging from poor coverage on portable units and mobile units to poor performance by repeaters. Dispatchers have reported equipment failure and long lead times on equipment repair, as well as frequency bleed, resulting in garbled communications. In the field, these issues result in firefighters missing page alerts, police officers unable to reach dispatchers and units talking over one another on different frequencies as dispatchers receive incoherent communications.
The county is addressing the issues with an action plan developed by a committee of local officials and first responders and Communication Consulting Service Inc., which was contracted to oversee improvement projects over the next fiscal year.
In June, the budget committee approved $73,000 to implement a portion of the action plan, specifically targeting the Mosher Hill Tower site and the towns of Weld, Phillips and Strong. CCS president Richard Davol has recommended that the county utilize Radio over Internet Protocol in areas where typical transmissions are inhibited by the mountainous terrain. With RoIP, dispatch would be able to communicate over the internet with a town-mounted unit, which would transfer communications to receiving units in the town. ROIP has been successfully used in towns like Jackman that had long been plagued with communication issues.
However, the console in the communications center is 10 years old and not capable of linking to a RoIP system. The funds allotted for communications improvements include $20,000 to upgrade the console to allow RoIP, but not significantly extend the life of the unit.
Rather than spend $20,000 to improve a $140,000 console that is currently slated for replacement next year, Communications Director Stan Wheeler has advocated purchasing a new, RoIP-capable console this year. The county would utilize $70,000 out of the TIF account and finance the other $70,000 over a 5-year period.
Commissioners expressed concerns with entering into a financing agreement without the endorsement of the budget committee process. Commissioner Gary McGrane pointed out that the county had communications issues for years, and that the console could possibly wait for the 2016 budget process.
Commissioner Charlie Webster asked for time to meet with Wheeler at the communications center and learn more about the console, although he also expressed concerns about altering the improvement plan after the budget process.
“Aren’t we going around the budget committee if we do this?” Webster said. He went on to agree that his preference was not to expend $20,000 for a 1-year bridge to new equipment.
Sheriff Scott Nichols said he was worried about his deputies, who were responding to domestic arguments and other potentially dangerous situations with at-times inadequate communications.
“What’s it look like for the people out there doing the work?” he asked. Weld and Carthage were particularly bad, he said, as was large portions of the northern county.
The other issue is $62,000 in Department Homeland Security grant funding that had been earmarked for Mosher Hill tower improvements. That money must be spent by Aug. 31, 2016, Franklin County Emergency Management Agency Tim Hardy said, with that deadline needing to be kept in mind before the county began rearranging the scheduling of projects.
In other business, commissioners approved plowing contracts for Madrid and the Farmington parking lots, including the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office and jail. The 5-year Madrid contract went to Allen Broussard at $4,900 per mile, while the parking lot contract went to E.L. Vining & Son for $13,400.
