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Mason County (IL)

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Mason County ETSB/911

10/6/06 - Tower dispute delays upgrades in Havana

By GAYE MAXSON CORRESPONDENT Published Thursday, October 06, 2005

HAVANA - A difference of opinion between Mason County's 911 board of directors and the Havana City Council has delayed upgrades to the communications system that could have been completed almost four months ago. As a result, some areas of the county remain without dependable emergency radio service.

On May 10, the county's 911 board chairman, Greg Griffin, applied for a building permit to erect a tower for a microwave dish on county property behind its jail in downtown Havana. The 911 dispatch center is there.

(The Havana council) and a lot of citizens do not want that tower,? Mayor Dale Roberts said. We would not compromise safety, yet we wanted to look at the alternatives. The current system works - most of the time. The problem is when it doesn?t work, Griffin said, noting that storms can knock out the system and dispatchers won?t immediately know a repeater or base station is down.

You're waiting minutes while your house is burning, he said. Storms start on (the west) side of the county. If we go down, we can?t let you know. It's going to cause delay we want to get rid of. Also, there are dead spots in the 911 system in rural Easton, the Sangamon River and Salt Creek bottoms, and the far eastern edge of the county.

The firemen around Easton - down in the bottoms - when they have a fire, they can?t hit the tower, said Easton Police Chief Bill Barnes. Mason City has a problem over there because of interference. I worked over there about four years. Sometimes they have trouble getting out.

Our mission is to create a more reliable radio system than we have now, Griffin said, explaining that the new plan utilizes two tall towers, instead of five different repeater antennas scattered throughout the county. He said his board?s plan offers redundancy of systems for backup in case one fails. The county already owns an old AT&T tower south of Teheran.

?If we can narrow our sites down to a couple of sites, it?s easier to maintain and more efficient, Griffin said, and the tower by the jail would be large enough to adapt with upgrades as they become available or are required by the government.

The proposed three-legged tower has no guy wires and is 180 feet tall. It has a 16.5-foot base and is 4.5 feet wide with a light at the top. The city of Havana does not oppose such a tower, zoning officer John Kachanuk said. The problem is they do not want a 180-foot tower in their downtown district.

The council as a whole believes it would take away from what they are trying to achieve. A lot of the building owners have improved their properties with awnings and new paint jobs for a retro look. They?re trying to make the downtown something to be proud of. This tower would be one block off downtown. At 180 feet, it would be the first thing you would see when you come into downtown or from outside of Havana. ?No matter what, it's going to stick up there.