[LeArc] Essics County paying .5M for radio channels

[Mark A Garrett]

November 6, 2008 - ELIZABETHTOWN -- Essex County plans to spend almost half a million dollars to buy eight new radio channels for its public-safety communications system. 
The VHF high-band frequencies are coming from Motorola, and county officials say they'll be needed to make the proposed radio network operate. 

The present radio system is failing, and the county has hired Motorola to design a state-of-the-art digital system to take its place. 

Supervisor Randy Preston (I-Wilmington) said the old system went off-line over the weekend. 

"The radio system in the northern end of the county was down. Volunteers had to man their stations." 

When the radio system fails, fire and ambulance volunteers wait in their stations and are dispatched by landline phone from the county's Enhanced-911 center in Lewis. 

The county needs four pairs of frequencies for the new system, and the Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to send Motorola a letter of intent to buy the channels for $495,000. 

Motorola got the channels from a ship-to-shore marine radio operator. 

"It's a horrible situation we're in when we have to buy these frequencies basically from speculators," Supervisor Daniel Connell (D-Westport) said. 

Supervisor Randy Douglas (D-Jay) said his fire chiefs were calling him over the weekend about county radio towers going dead. 

"I know we have a problem. But I don't think we should have to spend this amount of money for what should be public radio frequencies. We need to make our federal representatives aware of how we feel about this. It's ridiculous." 

The Federal Communications Commission is selling the radio spectrum to the highest bidder, Supervisor Ronald Jackson (R-Essex) said. 

"It's a money grab by Washington selling these frequencies. The FCC sold us down the river for their own gain. All they've done is helped themselves to our wallets." 

He said the county needs the radio channels for public-safety communications, so it can't decline the offer. 

"If we lose these frequencies, it'll set us back years on our radio system. It is totally ridiculous." 

Supervisor Noel Merrihew III (R-Elizabethtown) said the prices for the channel pairs have been established as market value. 

"We are not going to buy them until we have our full contract in place," Manning said. "One reason is obvious: You don't want to buy frequencies if you are not going forward with the rest of it." 

The county is waiting for a price from Motorola for the entire system. Previous informal estimates have been $8 million to $12 million. 

lmckinstry at pressrepublican.com 

----- 

To see more of The Press-Republican or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.pressrepublican.com/. 

Copyright (c) 2008, The Press-Republican, Plattsburgh, N.Y. 

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. 


 

Mark Garrett, KA9SZX