Proposed 911 Infrastructure Renovation Gets Tentative Price Tag

In a meeting with the Lewis County Board of County Commissioners on Monday, Director of Emergency Services Steve Mansfield and Radio Service Administrator for Lewis County Scott Mattoon unveiled price figures for the renovation of Lewis County’s infrastructure for fire, law enforcement and 911 services from a study done by Hatfield and Dawson Consulting Engineers. 

Mansfield presented six reports regarding the infrastructure’s renovation and added that while some of the reports are in “final form,” others were in “draft form” and would be finalized for a public meeting on March 9. 

Commissioner Edna Fund said she doesn’t anticipate the figures changing, though, and classified her reaction to their initial mention as “sticker shock.”  

The proposed renovation is predicted to cost between $6.5 and $7.7 million, depending on several options detailed in the report. 

“This is something we’ve been working on real hard this last year,” Mansfield said. “It came about as a result of years and years of work and discussion and now we’re down to a point where we’re getting the final product on the study that we paid for.” 

Before his presentation, Mansfield asked the commissioners to keep an “open mind” and called some of the numbers in the presentation “shocking.” 

Last year, when the board of commissioners first approved the study, Mansfield estimated necessary equipment and maintenance costs could hit $4 million.

On Monday, he compared the county’s current emergency infrastructure to an “old car,” by stating that while the system may be operational, the quality and the reliability are going to continue to deteriorate over time. 

“Our system is a good system, I don’t want to scare you like that, as far as what it’s doing right now,” Mansfield said during the meeting. “But, we have to make some choices real soon as far as where we go with this or it’s going to get to a point where it does break and we can’t fix it and then it’s going to cost a lot of money right away.”

The study done by Hatfield and Dawson included price figures, which, according to Mansfield, weren’t included in the original study done on the infrastructure in 2004 and 2005 by ADCOMM Engineering. 

He added that, when the first study was done, he recognized something needed to be done about the emergency infrastructure. He continued by saying he and his then-colleagues were slated to dedicate $1.2 million from Homeland Security and were taken by surprise when they found out how much the renovations would actually cost.

“We’re thinking, in the next couple of years, we’ll bring in over 1.2 million dollars we can put it toward, we’ll build a brand new infrastructure,” Mansfield said. “Well, the study comes back and it’s got about a five million dollar, six million dollar pricetag on it.

“We’re just sitting around the table thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what’re we going to do?’”

As a response, the funds were re-dedicated to maintaining the system rather than replacing it. 

“We bought radios, we bought microwaves, every year, whatever we got, we poured into the system,” Mansfield said. “We replaced old, outdated equipment, we tried to keep as much of this off (the commissioners’) bill as possible with the Homeland Security money. We’ve been doing that since 2005.”

Emergency Services, according to Mansfield, is now running into a scenario in which the old equipment is experiencing compatibility issues with new pieces and the department doesn’t have the money to upgrade. 

“The (Homeland Security) money has completely dried up,” Mattoon said. 

Mansfield said the Hatfield and Dawson study was broken into phases, in an effort to make the process of renovating the system more of a step-by-step project. 

According to the numbers from Hatfield and Dawson presented in the meeting, the total cost of the project will depend on whether or not the system includes “Fill-in Sites.” Fill-in Sites are, as Mansfield explains, additional sites that will need to be added around the county to provide the coverage detailed in the Needs Analysis Report. 

Per the study, the renovation is slated to cost a total of $7.7 million with the aforementioned fill-in sites and $6.5 million without them. Additionally, the project is broken into four phases.

“It’s substantial,” Mansfield said. “But it’s not overwhelming when you look at the fact that you’re looking at something that will withstand 20 years.”

He went on to say the estimates take each aspect of the process into account.

“This is not just equipment,” Mansfield said. “This is additional engineering work, additional site installation work because you can’t you can’t send (Mattoon) a one-person crew out there, to erect a tower, put in a site and do everything that needs to happen.”

As far as financing the project, Mansfield and Mattoon went on to provide different methods of financing for the renovations, including public-private partnerships and grants. Additionally, the prospects of re-allocating money was also presented. 

“Financing is the biggest question,” Martin said. “I think (Mansfield) put it well, you either find new money to pay for this or you use old money, which then, something else has to go away, so that’s the dilemma that’s before the board and they will need to consider that carefully and think about it.”

Martin added that more discussion will take place at the meeting on March 9, which the county’s political leaders will be invited to attend.

While Fund believes the aging infrastructure won’t be causing any urgent issues in the short term, she still feels it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.  

Despite the importance, though, the behind-the-scenes nature of the infrastructure, especially with a currently functional system, has some stressing the significance of the issue. 

“(The people) don’t want to know about this stuff, they just expect it to work,” Mansfield said. “When they call, they expect to get a service and they expect to get it sooner than we’re ever able to get there and that’s a fact. 

“We do the best we can, we give it our best and we do the best we can.”