The Carroll County Board of Supervisors have provided Chair, Neil Bock, the authority to negotiate an offer with their number one candidate to fill the IT director position. Current director, Carl Wilburn, has announced his upcoming retirement, effective in December of 2020. As a part of the replacement process, the supervisors divided Wilburn’s duties as GIS and IT Director and Planning and Zoning Administrator. In late July, a Minot, N.D. man was offered and accepted the position, but called back the very next day and rescinded his acceptance. The board went back to the drawing board, opening the position to applications again, and has identified their top three candidates. At their next meeting, Monday, Sept. 16, they are expected to officially approve and announce who will be taking over as the director. Also during that meeting, a discussion on a new, county-wide radio communications system will begin after a comprehensive presentation and recommendation at last Tuesday’s meeting. Rey Freeman, president of Rey Freeman Communications Consulting, LLC., reviewed a proposal from Motorola to bring the county onto the Iowa Statewide Interoperable Communications Systems (ISICS) platform for first responders. In order to provide consistent service throughout the entire county, whether emergency personnel are outside or inside buildings, the project would require additional towers in the lower portion of the county, at Manning and Coon Rapids. Freeman worked with Supervisor/911 Coordinator for Carroll County, Jason Hoffman, on options available, beyond taking on the cost of constructing communication towers.
When the proposal was first presented by Motorola, there was no existing tower available in the Coon Rapids area. Purchasing land, prepping and then building the tower could be an expensive proposal, but that has all changed. FTC Tower has built an AT&T/FirstNet tower that was erected after the Tuesday meeting. Freeman says talks are underway on renting space there as an alternative.
There was a recommendation made by Freeman that was not in the original proposal, and involves a third tower site for optimum county-wide coverage.
The pricing presented with the Lidderdale tower site and a discount of nearly $600,000 for entering into a contract before the end of September is just over $4.53 million, as compared to $4.44 million without. Freeman recommended the county go with the Motorola proposal over other alternatives of a simple update, staying VHF, going with P25 digital or with RACOM on the SARA network due to a lack of presence in western Iowa. Monday’s supervisor meeting will begin at 9 a.m. in the board room at the Carroll County Courthouse.
