County commissioners, EMA working to free up funds for public safety departments

NORWALK — The Huron County commissioners and Emergency Management Agency are considering using funds from the 9-1-1 Levy to help public safety departments upgrade their first responder equipment next year. EMA director Tacy Bond met with the commissioners last week to propose a plan where the commissioners would pay those departments' communication fees (typically paid to the Huron County Sheriff's office for dispatching). The departments usually pay those fees themselves, but under Bond's plan, they could spend their fee money on equipment upgrades. "We're saving them money that they could use for other issues that may need (to address) in their safety services," Bond said. "In lieu of giving them the communications money, they can have that money for any first responder equipment they would need." One piece of equipment that Bond said departments want to upgrade is their pagers. Some fire departments, like New London's and North Fairfield's, don't have pagers. They have radios, but pagers are imperative for the volunteer firemen who work at those departments, "Pagers are very important for the volunteer fire departments because that's how they get notified if there's a call," Bond said. Instead of sending an agency 30 radios for 30 volunteer firemen, they can get 10 radios on the truck and 20 pagers for the firefighters (who aren't in the station)." Fire stations in Norwalk, Willard, Monroeville and Wakeman have pagers, but they're outdated. Some by as much as 15 years, according to Bond. With the county switching from a Very High Frequency to a 700-800 megahertz (public safety grade) radio system, those old pagers won't work. "The technology's changed," Bond said. "What happens with a computer at home in a year or two. It's outdated." "What we're trying to do is get everybody up to the same level to where you're not having such a mishmash of equipment and outdated equipment." Bond said the levy plan is not finalized yet. She'll meet with the county's Technical Advisory Committee before the year ends, and it will vote on the plan. From there, the plan will be voted the Planning Commission and the county commissioners. If the plan passes through all those votes, the money would become available to public safety departments in March 2021. "We know police and fire are underfunded in a lot of areas," Bond said. "So this way, we can say thank you to the taxpayers and help those departments out. Instead of paying communications fees, they (would) have a little bit of money to get whatever they need."