Commission “begrudgingly” approves new radios

The City of Cedartown will be getting new radio equipment when the county’s still-to-be approved radio system goes into place, but city commissioners weren’t happy having to cast the vote to approve.

New Commissioner Sam Branch questioned why the system was being purchased only six years after the previous version — not long after he left the employ of the 911 center — and why public safety officials from Cedartown weren’t consulted before votes came up for them to approve an intergovernmental agreement on the costs for new equipment.

City Manager Bill Fann when introducing the intergovernmental agreement establishing Cedartown’s partnership in using the radio system with the county, but also the total cost of $373,358 they’ll owe the county to purchase new handheld radios for the fire and police departments.

“With a little bit of wiggling by our police and fire departments in regards with lower cost equipment, we were able to reduce this somewhat,” Fann said.

At least one of the radios the city agreed to purchase in the upgrade will total in around $6,700. A majority of the equipment is around $3,500 to $3,700 per radio, totaling up to 100 even.

Once commissioners began their discussion of the new agreement and purchase costs, he pointedly asked Fann, Commission Chair Matt Foster and Chief Felix White when they were first brought into the discussions on the new radio system.

“That is a great question, and it depends entirely upon who you ask. We were told by former assistant county manager Barry Atkison that the discussion began early last spring,” Fann answered. He added in a clarifying response that he meant 2019, and that it was this past August before the city was brought into the discussion for what will amount to more than $6 million in costs for the county and shared in subscriber equipment by the cities.

“Anytime during that time period, Mr. City Manager, were you consulted by the county regarding this radio system?” Branch additionally questioned, and received only a “No sir” from Fann in response.

Branch’s issue was not with the upgrades themselves, a proposal he greatly values and appreciates considering his father’s time as a volunteer and later fire chief in the Polk County Fire Department. He had problems with the process.

“Some of you may know this, and some of you may not: I know very intimately both sides of that system. I’ve stood on the back of a pickup truck on a tool box with a radio up in the air at 2 o’clock in the morning on Little Harmony Road watching a house burn down. Can’t get radio out,” Branch explained. “I’ve also sat in the dispatch room trying to figure out if one of my police officers was in

trouble because they can’t get a radio out on a traffic stop on the side of the road. I want to applaud them for that.”

He added that “However, I kind of wonder why if our firefighters and our police officers are going to be using this equipment, and our taxpayers and our taxpayer dollars are going to be funding this equipment, then why we were never approached, consulted or ‘hey, this is your heads up’ months down the road.”

He also said that “I have a problem voting on an intergovernmental agreement and spending taxpayer dollars and we have no idea whether this system works or not. we have no idea if it is the best system or not. To my knowledge, a new system was put in place in the 911 center 5, 6 years ago shortly after I left. And now we’re replacing it again by another Motorola system.”

Foster agreed with Branch, along with others, that the process of the upgrades could have been handled better, especially in opening discussions on the radio system upgrades between the county and the cities.

“if you were there, you got a lot of talking at of ‘here’s where we’re going with this.’ It sounded good and all, and anybody who has ever budgeted even a personal budget in their life started going ‘really?’ And started asking questions, like ‘how did you negotiate this?’ and arrive at this price tag? Why is the school district paying something at a certain level that doesn’t match what they’re getting for it?,” Foster said.

He added that “Well that’s garbage, because Mr. Guzman, Mr. Fann and Mrs. Orebaugh didn’t take 24 hours and found a better deal. And so, it was kind of like: here’s this nice beautiful thing that we worked on, and let me show it to you, see how pretty it is, now pass it.”

Foster called the agreement and pricetag “not a beautiful baby” that needed to be approved despite the commission’s qualms about its passage.

“It’s a hand we’ve been dealt, really,” he said.

It was a vote the commission approved “begrudgingly” during the course of a busy night to wrap up the 2019 year, which also included approval of the final budget.

With that approval, along with Rockmart’s agreement and others made with Bartow and Cobb Counties and a private landowner near the Alabama state line, Polk County has everything just about ready to go for approval.

The commission was set to gather for a special called session on Monday after press time. Check back online at Polkstandardjournal.com for more on that meeting.