RSS Feed
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
County firefighters want working radio system Stan Rigney attended the March 24 meeting of the Washington County Commission and stated that he represented the Washington County Fire Association and wished to speak to the 800 MHZ radio system. "It is the consensus of the fire association that the system is not approved nor operational," he said. Judge Charles Singleton replied, "About a year ago I thought the radio system would be operational in about one month. There are five towers involved. Then the sheriff decided he wanted to do something else with Homeland Security and pulled (his) funds. We have tried to hang repeaters. We had to go to another tower and will use Southern Railroad with the McIntosh Rescue Squad. The repeaters should be put on line this week. That is the last piece of the puzzle." Rigney said, "From the prospective of the user (fire association) we are faced with purchasing new equipment as the Forestry System will go on narrow band. We want to use county funds wisely." Singleton continued, "I have been working on this for 12 years now. Until 9-11, there were no funds available. After 9-11, Homeland Security made some funds available. This system works; it just has not been proven in Washington County. Due to opposition from other elected officials, this (radio system) has been pushed to a secondary place." Rigney stated, "Well who is the go-to person for all this?"
Singleton explained that originally the county engineer had been designated, but since then it had been proposed that this job be turned over to the EMA director, as the county engineer is loaded with his regular duties. Rigney thanked the commission for their time, but emphasized, "We need some communication and some direction."
|
for larger version       |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
