County moves ahead with focus on public safety and more
The Polk County Commission decided as 2019 was coming to a close to spend a big chunk of money in an effort to ensure that 911 radio communications would work smoothly in the future.
The unanimous vote at the end of 2019 to approve a contract with Motorola for new towers and a whole new P-25 mission critical public safety communications system along with handheld radios, links to Cobb County’s core and new towers to improve coverage across the county brings with it a more than $7 million price tag, with costs to be shared by the cities and the Polk School District Police for issuing new handheld radio equipment.
Construction is set to move ahead in the coming months, and is part of an effort in 2020 for county government to put their focus on helping police officers, sheriff’s deputies and volunteer firefighters do their jobs well.
Some of that work will involve new efforts of community participation as officials hope to tackle issues like drug addiction and gang activity locally as public safety gets the front and center attention.
“That’s our top priority this year, and we’ve been working with groups like
Polk Against Drugs and the community to tackle this issue,” Commission Chair Jennifer Hulsey said. “One of the ways we hope to proactively get more people involved is through making sure the public knows what we’re dealing with here in Polk County. We will be having a gang and drug awareness event in the coming weeks in order to help bring additional information and education about what our community is facing.”
She said the event — being organized by several organizations working together — is being sponsored by the county in conjunction with local and state law enforcement. The goal is to help provide a greater background of knowledge to the public about what drugs are being used locally, and what gangs are operating locally that law enforcement is trying to curtail.
Another area the county is turning toward again is a look at improving the Polk County Volunteer Fire Department. In recent weeks as the year began, the county discussed coming back to previous work on the fire stations and make decisions about repairs at some of the structures around the county.
The county continues in past and present to look at coverage maps and ISO ratings and look to place stations such a manner that allows the greatest amount of coverage for volunteer fire companies and not have overlapping zones in the process. Previously, the county looked at ways to bring in a mix of paid and volunteer service and reviewed ideas to move stations around to gain the greatest advantage in coverage area.
A recent push by the department for recruitment that started at the beginning of the year continues as they seek to bring in new volunteers and increase the manpower available to help with firefighting. More information about how to become a volunteer firefighter and provide a positive community service can be found at polkga.org/volunteer-firedept or by calling the Polk County Emergency Management Agency’s office 770748-3439 to find out about the requirements.
Alongside the need for manpower in the department is a request from Polk County Public Safety Director Randy Lacey for a review of the spacing between hydrants and needed replacements across the county.
He told the board during their February session that he’d like to see any new hydrants spaced 1,000 feet apart in areas around the county that can handle the water lines necessary to provide fire service.
Lacey added that review of hydrants happen for Insurance Service Organization inspections regularly. Changes to the way hydrants are placed and their distance between one another are sought to help firefighters get water where they need it without the need for pumper trucks, or to provide a faster shuttle service when that isn’t a possibility.
This year will also mark
Polk County’s inclusion in the still developing DEA Rome-Floyd High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area that will cover the North Georgia area. Commissioners recently approved permission for the Drug Task Force to send an agent along to work with Federal authorities and other counties in Rome and provide a vehicle for use.
In return, the county will get access to federal investigative resources that become available for agencies participating in the HIDTA detail.
As the county focuses on items like these in law enforcement out of many projects officials are tackling at one time, work that began in year’s past is likely to see fruition in months to come. underway that is expected to wrap up sometime later in 2020 is the runway extension that began when Gov. Nathan Deal was still in office in 2018 with funding provisions from the state’s Department of Transportation Aviation division that was secured in the previous state budget.
The project finally broke ground in June 2019. The scope of the work requires movement of tons of material to allow for the runway to go out to 5,000 feet and allow for small private jets to land locally, as well as provide an additional 200 feet of space at the end of the runway for planes to utilize in emergency braking situations where they run out of paved surface.
Airport Manager Chuck Beavers said that drivers in the area should expect Air