Sending out an S.O.S.

What is known is that the radios and communication equipment is at or near its projected end of life. With changes in technology, it is getting harder to find parts and keep the system running.

What is not known is how the county should go forward with replacing and updating this equipment. They need to decide if the county should continue with the state WISCOM network or look at something more suited to the needs of the county and building out from the existing communication towers.

At stake is potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of expense to taxpayers and the ability of emergency personnel to communicate effectively during emergency situations.

Members of the Taylor County Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Committee are hoping that a radio system study by PSC Alliance of Bloomington, Minn. will provide the county guidance in deciding which route to take. On Nov. 14, committee members approved hiring the firm to do the study at a projected cost of $34,750. In taking the vote, committee members referred it to the county’s finance meeting to determine where the money for the study will come from.

“We need to make a decision to either stick with what we have or go with our own system,” said chief deputy Corey Dassow. Dassow, who will take over as sheriff in January, has been spearheading looking into replacing the radio system.

See COUNTY on page 3 Committee member Lori Floyd expressed concerns that any system the county gets will continue to allow deputies to communicate with other law enforcement agencies. “We can’t take a step back,” Floyd said, citing the interoperability issues that led to additional loss of life at events such as the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. “All law enforcement agencies need to be able to talk to each other,” she said.

Dassow assured committee members that any system they would get would do that, but he said he brought the consultants forward as being a group that was independent and not in the pockets of Motorola or any of the other vendors.

Committee member Catherine Lemke raised concern that the consulting contract is open-ended. “There will be no cap on it,” Lemke said, noting the study quotes time and expenses rather than a firm dollar amount.

Committee member Darrell Thompson expressed concern of sending something forward only to have it pushed back like what was done when the committee attempted to hire a consultant to give options on ambulance service needs.

In the end, committee members voted to send the request to contract for the study to the finance committee with it to go, eventually, to the full county board.

Courthouse security

Members of the law enforcement committee formally approved moving ahead with hiring a courthouse security position in the sheriff’s department.

The county board had previously approved going to having a deputy doing weapons screening at the courthouse.

“Do you have plans for them to be doing other things?” Lemke asked, noting the large amount of downtime the position may have between people coming into the building.

Dassow said that because they would have to be able to be at the entrance whenever someone is coming in, it would be difficult to have them do tasks like logging evidences. However, he said it would be possible to have a work station for them where they could monitor cameras from around the building as well as watching the entrance.

“I imagine there will be some days that it will be pretty boring,” Dassow said.

Floyd reported she has heard feedback from a constituent who was very angry about having a security screening at the courthouse. Thompson noted that the person not only protects the courts but everyone else who is in the courthouse.

In other business committee members:

• Approved having a GPS tracking device placed on the vehicle used by the emergency management director. The county board is leaving it up to each oversight committee to determine which county owned vehicles have the devices. The sheriff’s department vehicles are tracked through the department’s existing data management system. Emergency management director Dan Gellert said while it doesn’t bother him to have the GPS unit in the vehicle, he noted that most of the time it would be sitting in the parking lot at the courthouse. While as a matter of routine, Gellert alerts dispatch to when he goes to an emergency scene, concern was raised about if this is recorded anywhere by dispatch and that they do not know when he leaves those scenes.

• Approved beginning the process to fill the vacant position that will be created when Dassow becomes sheriff and another deputy is promoted to fill his spot.

• Received an update on the county’s K-9 officer. Deputy Brett Paul recently returned from training with the county’s K-9. Floyd said she would like to see better statistics on actual enforcement use with the K-9. “To me it a big expense if it is just for PR,” she said. Dassow replied that while there is a public relations part, the K-9 is also used for enforcement. “It is a wonderful asset for Taylor County,” Thompson said in support of the K-9 program.