
By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
Barton County 911 Director Dena Popp went before the Barton County Commission last week to discuss maintenance to the 800 megahertz radio repeater towers.
A tower was installed in September 2020 using Strengthening People and Revitalizing Kansas (SPARK) funding during the COVID-19 pandemic. Maintenance was included in the first year of the contract, but Barton County has footed the bill since.
Popp asked for approval of year five of maintenance, support and software updates for the towers.
"The maintenance contract is very important to the 911 Center and emergency services personnel," said Popp. "It assists me by notification of alarms, high heat, intrusion, power outage and regular updates to the system. This contract saves me a lot of drive time to go to these locations to physically check them myself."
The Commission approved the bid from Motorola Solutions for $65,628.
Popp said she still physically checks on the tower location in Susank at least quarterly.