The Sunflower County Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 1 to purchase 33 new walkie-talkies for the road department employees during Tuesday’s meeting. Supervisor Dennis Holmes was the lone no vote.
Before the vote Holmes said he was for purchasing radios, but his issue was apparently the number of radios being purchased. He stated that he has seen up to three workers in one truck, and in such cases, each person doesn’t need one.
“They don’t need three radios,” he said. “Need to cut the number down.”
President Glenn Donald and E-911 Director John Thompson explained, that some situations would require workers to be separated, perhaps justifying the need for more radios.
Supervisor Anthony Clark said he was for it but asked where they were going to get the $6,930 needed to purchase the items since the purchase was not budgeted. Donald suggested checking the road department communication line item to see if there was enough money there.
When the board checked, there wasn’t enough money on the line.
County Administrator Gloria McIntosh said there were zero dollars on the “Other communications” budget line. Donald then asked rhetorically how they had planned to purchase the radios when they had previously asked the road managers to acquire them.
Donald had asked Thompson to analyze the county’s needs because he said repeated attempts to get the road managers to do it went unheeded.
The discussion lasted for nearly 30 minutes as Thompson explained his findings. His task was to determine which options presented the best choice and obtain quotes.
At the heart of the matter was whether to supply each of the employees with individual communication devices or install radios in each piece of the county’s road equipment. He chose the former.
“This comes out a whole lot cheaper than putting a radio on the equipment,” Donald said. “Thompson reported that it would cost around $14,000 to outfit the equipment because it will require professional installation due to voltage differences and the warranties.
In addition, antennas would have to be installed on each vehicle and piece of machinery. Donald reminded the board that much of the equipment is on “buy back” and improperly installing the radio units could affect the amount received. Plus, if a worker was away from the vehicle when a call came in he could miss it, which could delay work or produce other undesirable situations.
Thompson said with the current placement of the repeaters throughout the county a worker should never be in an area where he would be out of communication range.
For safety reasons, the county currently has a no cell phone policy and Donald asserted that the men need some form of communication to properly carry out their daily assignments.
In considering the personal units, Thompson stressed the necessity of the individual being assigned to a specific unit and held responsible for properly maintaining that unit. They would be kept at the county road barns when not in use.
