COOPERSTOWN _ At Wednesday's meeting, the Otsego County Board of Representatives agreed to a $408,904 contract to upgrade its emergency communications and a $60,000 contract to retain a communications consultant.
The project calls for Alcatel-Lucent Inc. to replace telephone lines that connect the Otsego County Office Building in Cooperstown and the Public Safety Building and Meadows Office Complex in Middlefield.
The land lines, now leased at an annual cost of nearly $60,000, will be replaced with four microwave dishes and associated equipment, according to Roy Althizer, the county's communications director.
``It will be a vast improvement in public safety for the county,'' he said.
The county has had problems for years with this link in its microwave system, he noted. ``We've had a lot of trouble when it rains, and even though we have some redundancy in the system, you're always in danger of losing an emergency call.''
The telephone lines were leased to provide adequate connectivity until the link was upgraded.
The new equipment includes two microwave dishes to be mounted on a county-owned tower on Cornish Hill outside of Cooperstown, he said, as well as dishes at the Public Safety Building and County Office Building in Cooperstown.
Before the vote to proceed with the project, which was passed unanimously by those present, Rep. Sam Dubben, R-Middlefield, cautioned the board not to lose sight of an evolving telecommunications plan to link public safety and Internet access for all county residents.
Rep. James Powers, R-Butternuts, county board chairman, said he was aware the board needs guidance, and toward that end, he recommended that the county contract with L. Robert Kimball Associates, of Ebensburg, Pa.
Later in the meeting, after hearing a brief presentation from Kimball representative Kevin Karn, the board retained the firm at a fee not to exceed $60,000. In the late 1990s, Karn was a consultant who helped the county implement its 911 emergency telephone system.
In other business, the board:
ä Voted to ask the county treasurer to pay the business manager at the county's Mental Health Clinic a salary of $34,000 annually. The business manager has been receiving less pay for the last several months.
According to Susan Dalesandro, Mental Health Clinic director, the board had voted to approve this position and salary last year.
ä Heard from Dubben, chairman of the county's Public Works Committee, that the county's lever-action voting machines have been declared surplus, and ``now we're going to have to decide what to do with them.''
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