Floyd County countywide communications system making progress

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The new Floyd County emergency services communications system is moving closer to completion, with antenna work finishing up this week on the existing tower at the Charles City City Hall.

“I think we’re on the downhill right now,” said Jason Webster, Floyd County emergency management coordinator, on Wednesday. “They’re just adding the new antennas and taking the old stuff down off of the tower right now. Work is, I think, completed on the inside of the building within the server room and with their DC battery backup stuff in there. That’s going well.”

The project will provide new radio communications equipment and capabilities for the Sheriff’s Office, Charles City Police Department, Charles City Fire Department and other law enforcement, firefighter and emergency services in the county.

Webster said soil tests have been completed at the site of a new 300-foot radio tower that will be built on land the county purchased for that purpose near the Fossil and Prairie Park.

“They gave them two different options to pick from as far as the foundation and the type of base that they want to use,” he said. “So now the tower company (Pyramid Network Services) is just deciding which one of those options they want to go with, and then start pouring concrete. It’s my understanding that once the concrete is in and cured that the tower will go up relatively quickly.”

Webster said he hopes that Charles City police and fire can start using the new system locally once work at city hall is finished, perhaps by the end of the month, and then the rest of the system might be online by the end of November or early December.

All the new portable radios are at the vendor and are being programmed for the needed channels and options, and once those are finished they’ll start programming the mobile radios and installing them in the vehicles, he said.

“I think that’s just a pretty fantastic project that we’re getting here and it’ll make communications so much better than they are right now. We’ve been struggling for a long time,” he said.

The new equipment will operate on ISICS, the Iowa Statewide Interoperable Communications System, a statewide radio platform that provides microwave-based radio communications to public safety agencies and others, border to border across the state.

Floyd County is paying for the new radio communications system. The Floyd County Board of Supervisors approved issuing $4.83 million in general obligation emergency communications bonds a little over a year ago, and authorized levying property taxes in the county to pay for that bonding.

Because the bonds are being sold at a premium, the $4.83 million in bonds resulted in actual funding available to the county of about $5.13 million, or about $4.87 million after all issuing expenses were paid and money was set aside for the interest that accumulated in the first year before new property taxes that were levied for the project began coming in.