The quorum court met Monday night in the jury room of the Eastern District Courthouse in Berryville. All 11 justices of the peace attended, and another dozen spectators packed into the small space.
County Judge Sam Barr apologized for the inconvenience, saying Circuit Court continued in the courtroom until well after the 5 p.m. start time for the meeting.
Almost 45 minutes of the meeting went to a discussion of new radios for emergency services. Jason La Forge represented Harris Corp., and outlined an upgraded system to give the county more dependable coverage. He said fully converting to an 800-megahertz system would cost about $4,000,000, but coverage would improve. The 800-megahertz system will also work much better in extreme emergencies when cell phone services may be affected.
The proposal calls for seven towers distributed around the county. A map showed one tower in the southeastern corner of the county, but even with the nearby tower, many areas between there and Green Forest would not receive a signal. La Forge explained that the terrain in that area would leave some hollows without service, no matter how many towers the county installed.
The seven-tower system would provide almost complete coverage in the metropolitan areas of the county. La Forge said the system would have 89-percent coverage in rural areas, and explained other advantages, including some built-in redundancies in case of equipment problems. Mobile or hand-held radios would also work wherever a cell signal is available, even outside the immediate area.
JP Jack Deaton said the new system would eventually be mandated. Other agencies, including police and fire departments, will have to buy expensive new radios. The county may not find any grants or other sources of funding for this, and even a lease-purchase would impose a financial burden on the county. Treasurer Makita Williams asked if the cities would bear any of the cost of installing the system.
District 11 JP John Howerton serves the Osage area. Although that area currently has many holes in coverage for cell phones or radio, Howerton questioned the cost. “It’s not perfect in south Carroll County where I’m at,” he said, “but it’s acceptable in most places.”
JP Craig Hicks is an officer with the Berryville Police Department. “In my professional opinion, as a guy who uses the radio five days a week, what we have now works just fine most of the time.”
Deaton asked to table the “very important” topic until next month.