Marshfield Common Council Moves Forward with Radio Communication Upgrade
Thursday, June 28th, 2018 -- 9:07 AM
(WDLB) -Marshfield aldermen are moving ahead with the first phase of a four-year plan for upgrading the city's radio communication system for police and fire personnel.On Tuesday, the Common Council voted in favor of a budget resolution that will redirect 190-thousand dollars to cover the installation of a simulcast system, which City Administrator Steve Barg says was initially earmarked for purchasing new portable radios for police.
Barg: "These are towers that you can put in different places in the city. They're not massive towers that are going to take over the landscape, but if you strategic put three in different places and put equipment on them from Police Transmissions, that would actually provide better coverage than we could do from the portable radios. So, it doesn't mean that the old portables won't need to be replaced some day. They're still old. They still need to be replaced in the next two or three years, but that would be a better bang for the buck, so to speak, initially, to give that sense of security that the police are able to communicate with dispatch and other officers."
Barg says the simulcast infrastructure is the first step in a four-year, 765-thousand dollar plan for solving the city's police radio problems.
Barg: "Where those dollars are coming from, I don't know. They're not in any great place that I can take them from. But, I can tell you that police and fire and ambulance communications are important and we're not going to neglect it. We're going to do as much as we can from this list."
The Green Bay-based Baycom Corporation recently presented the Council with the four-year upgrade proposal. Under the plan, Baycom calls for replacing half of the portable radios next year, and the other half in 2020. Baycom is also proposing a fourth tower site in 2021, at a cost of 44-thousand dollars. The Fire Department would also be brought on to that system, at a cost of 152-thousand.
The issue came to light last year when the Marshfield Police Department discovered their portable radios were not working from certain areas of the city. The Council responded by taking 190-thousand dollars initially earmarked in the 2018 budget for the Marshfield Area Pet Shelter, and putting it toward some kind of police radio plan, which at that time had not yet been identified.
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