Sept. 12 -- GLASGOW, KY -- Representatives from all of the county's volunteer fire departments filled many of the seats for Monday evening's Barren County Fiscal Court special meeting.
At stake, potentially, were lives.
The agenda item for which they were attending was the question of whether the county government should purchase new radio-signal repeaters needed for adequate communication within and between emergency-response departments throughout the county.
While all of the repeaters are due for replacement due to age, probably most urgently necessary now is the replacement of the one on Pruitt's Knob, serving the Park City-Cave City vicinity, because it is – as Cave City's fire chief put it – “fried.”
Barren County Judge-Executive Micheal Hale said that all of the repeaters have “about give out on us.” Hale said he has watched as the volunteer departments have struggled to raise money for their basic needs. Hale retired as assistant chief of the Glasgow Fire Department but also has served as a volunteer firefighter for several years and continues to do so.
He made the motion for the fiscal court to purchase six repeaters, saying that one quoted price was around $78,000, “but we feel like we can do better.” After a second on the motion from District 5 Magistrate Gary Gillon, District 6 Magistrate Charles Allen asked Hale to confirm that he was saying Cave City-Park City would not be getting an extra repeater.
Hale said there had been talk of possibly getting seven repeaters to provide additional coverage in that area, but after consulting with Marcus Thurman, a local resident and representative for one of the radio vendors who is familiar with the terrain and had studied where the “dead spots” in radio coverage are, it was determined that six would be sufficient.
Allen, whose district is primarily composed of Park City and Cave City, said he would like to hear from the chiefs of those departments.
Ronnie Stinson, Park City's fire chief, said that, regarding the technical aspects, “if Marcus says it will cover us, I'm good. … I trust his expertise.”
Thurman is also a volunteer deputy director for Glasgow-Barren County Emergency Management.
Stinson later clarified that the one on Pruitt's Knob is among the six existing ones; a seventh would have been additional, in a new location.
He said that with the Pruitt's Knob repeater down, he and others in the department are often not getting the pages from dispatch, noting a recent example with a vehicle fire on an Interstate 65 ramp when several happened to actually be at the fire station.
“Not one of us got a page,” he said. “Somebody else came in and said, 'We've got a fire on the interstate.' … So [with] that repeater down, we're not getting people to runs, because of not getting first and second pages, and half the time my pager doesn't go off on the first page. … Without those [repeaters], we're just not getting out. It's not only a question of we can't talk to each other, we're just not going without that.”
He said they have cell-phone backups, but those can be delayed several minutes, so they should not be relied upon as primary means for communication.
Kevin Jandt, chief of the Cave City department, said he also wasn't the best one to address the technical aspects, but he would tend to go along with what Thurman said on the number needed.
“I know the problem right now is, that me and Ronnie are having, Cave City's repeater is down. It's been fried for a couple of months, so we're having to rely on trying to … kick off either Glasgow's tower or Hiseville's or … Railton's,” he said, but that's with interference from Pruitt's Knob, hills, etc. “And you can't get parts for that particular brand repeaters that's throughout the county now.”
District 3 Magistrate Carl Dickerson asked whether they would have to advertise for bids, and Hale said they would, adding that Thurman would probably be a bidder, so he wasn't there for that discussion because it could be a conflict of interest.
District 2 Magistrate Trent Riddle asked whether this was the optimal way to go to avoid the potential of having to come back in a year or two and have to buy something else or something better.
“Is this the right way to do it?” he asked.
Tracy Shirley, director of Glasgow-Barren County Emergency Management, said the current repeaters are 12 years old and are no longer supported by the manufacturer since November 2014.
“It's hard to get parts for service. It's hard to find them right now,” he said. “We're running on about 50 percent of what we actually have out there, because Cave City is down. Some of them have issues all the time. Railton repeater has issues with the network card.”
He said the ones desired for purchase could be updated as the new software becomes available.
“In the near future, I don't know of anything that's going to be replacing radio systems,” Shirley said. “I think it would be sustainable.”
Riddle asked whether he thought these would carry the county through at least 10 years, and Shirley said he firmly believed they would.
“And not only that, you know, y'all were asking about the bid. This is state bid price. You could just buy it flat out if it's state bid price, if I'm not mistaken. That's his question – the county attorney,” Shirley said. “I know y'all bought trucks here awhile back on state bid price when we were bidding them out. I assume you could do radios the same way.”
He said the biggest problem with the current ones is that they are no longer manufactured, but they are seeking Kenwood brand repeaters, and Kenwood has been around a long time and has products for both amateur radio operators and emergency services.
Hale said in the past few years, the fiscal court hadn't been financially able to participate in such projects for the county, but that picture has improved “this is public safety at its best.”
The vote was then unanimous for the purchase.
Hale had also taken the opportunity in his mention of the fundraising efforts to counter what he said was incorrect information going around that he had “taken money out of the pockets” of the volunteer departments. He said that in 2015, when county finances were “really, really bad,” a 10 percent cut was imposed across the board, including for the fire departments, but he said the $1,000 cut per department was made up and doubled with private-sector contributions he raised, and in 2017, he got them $3,000 per department.
“I went out and fought for you,” he said before making the motion for the purchase of the repeaters.
The meeting also included a discussion of the recent Babe Ruth tournament, with Dickerson asking several questions of Charles Kerney, the Parks and Recreation Department director.
Kerney provided, in addition to a written report of the finances and other details, a brief verbal report in which he said the average attendance was probably 500 to 800, and the net revenue would be $5,194.66.
Dickerson questioned whether he used local umpires, and Kerney said he did, and asked specifically about two individuals, whom Kerney said were called but could not be there. Other details, such as payment for a person who cooked and contracts – or the lack thereof – for beverage distribution were discussed.
Kerney said the profit, per se, may not have been that much, because they're “not there yet,” but he wasn't there to make a profit but to provide recreational opportunities for the children of Barren County.
He then focused on the economic impact to the community, which included nearly $15,000 paid to 15 local vendors, 25 Barren County residents who worked and received payment in addition to 18 local umpires, for a total of $24,115.19 in immediate impact. He also expressed gratitude for the adult volunteers who worked.
In other business, the fiscal court adopted resolutions adopting the property tax rates to be levied for the separate taxing districts – library, extension service and ambulance service.
It also approved second reading of the ordinance setting the county's tax rates the same as the prior year, as the Glasgow Daily Times reported separately.
___ (c)2018 the Glasgow Daily Times (Glasgow, Ky.) Visit the Glasgow Daily Times (Glasgow, Ky.) at www.glasgowdailytimes.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
