Fentress County Commission, E-911, and the Fentress County Board of Education are forming a partnership to upgrade the county’s radio towers.
County Executive Jimmy Johnson said that it’s been about 25 years since the last update to the whole system. He said that with all of the mountains and valleys in the county, it’s created issues for open communication.
“So you might be able to talk as long as you’re on top of the mountain, but then you get down into the valley there is a hard time receiving calls,” Johnson said. “And it really was a dangerous situation. If you’re there and you need some help or you can’t get to them, or someone’s hurt and you can’t get it out on your radio.”
Johnson said that the county will contribute 60 percent, the E-911 Department 35 percent, and the school board will cover the remaining. He said that once the equipment is upgraded and new pieces purchased, they will have five communications towers in total.
Johnson said that to help in this process, the county commission also approved a purchasing cooperative agreement to get the needed equipment.
“We’ve been in touch with a company and with them, we can piggyback on some different ways we can do this without having to put out a bunch of bids for them,” Johnson said.
