County Has Locations For Communication Towers
September 1, 2020 at 11:43 p.m.
By David [email protected]
At the county commissioners meeting Tuesday, Terry Burnworth, of Pyramid Consulting, asked for approval “to do the documents and bidding of the three public safety towers and then we’ll do an alternate of three broadband towers.”
As for the bidding schedule, he said the documents will be made available for potential bidders around Sept. 16, with bids due Oct. 13. Bids will be for things like concrete, fence work, electrical “and things like that,” he said.
Commissioner Cary Groninger said he knows Burnworth has been working on this the last few weeks, and he made a motion to move forward with the bidding process. The county has been working on the public safety communications project for a number of years.
After Commissioner Bob Conley provided the second to the motion, Groninger said this was just the next step of the county’s public safety communications, “but along with that, we’re looking at trying to add some additional towers for some rural broadband and putting broadband in the county, so but we hope this public safety communication” and other towers help school corporations in the county’s weak spots for eLearning. “So we’re real excited about this,” Groninger said.
Expanding on that, Burnworth said, “You’ve been in meetings with potential people that would use those broadband towers for fixed wireless. We had two more meetings yesterday, and those two vendors are also interested, too, so you have four vendors.”
The commissioners unanimously approved Groninger’s motion for Burnworth to move forward on the documents and bidding.
Later in the meeting, on the public safety communications project, County Administrator Marsha McSherry said, “We have tower locations now; thank you to Warsaw Community Schools (Superintendent) Dr. David Hoffert and (Chief Technology Officer) Brad Hagg, as we met with them numerous times. Two of the towers – one will be located at Warsaw (Community) High School and one will be located at Claypool School for that part of the project.”
As for the north tower, McSherry said the county will have to purchase land to place that tower and she had two appraisals for that landed that needed to be approved. After the commissioners approved the appraisals, it moves on to the county council and county attorney Chad Miner will prepare a resolution for the council to approve on this part of the project.
Groninger said they located a property north of Dewart Lake that sits on the continental divide. He said they have a price per acre in mind, which the property owner approved, but a formal survey hasn’t been completed yet to confirm how many acres are there.
The commissioners approved McSherry’s request.
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At the county commissioners meeting Tuesday, Terry Burnworth, of Pyramid Consulting, asked for approval “to do the documents and bidding of the three public safety towers and then we’ll do an alternate of three broadband towers.”
As for the bidding schedule, he said the documents will be made available for potential bidders around Sept. 16, with bids due Oct. 13. Bids will be for things like concrete, fence work, electrical “and things like that,” he said.
Commissioner Cary Groninger said he knows Burnworth has been working on this the last few weeks, and he made a motion to move forward with the bidding process. The county has been working on the public safety communications project for a number of years.
After Commissioner Bob Conley provided the second to the motion, Groninger said this was just the next step of the county’s public safety communications, “but along with that, we’re looking at trying to add some additional towers for some rural broadband and putting broadband in the county, so but we hope this public safety communication” and other towers help school corporations in the county’s weak spots for eLearning. “So we’re real excited about this,” Groninger said.
Expanding on that, Burnworth said, “You’ve been in meetings with potential people that would use those broadband towers for fixed wireless. We had two more meetings yesterday, and those two vendors are also interested, too, so you have four vendors.”
The commissioners unanimously approved Groninger’s motion for Burnworth to move forward on the documents and bidding.
Later in the meeting, on the public safety communications project, County Administrator Marsha McSherry said, “We have tower locations now; thank you to Warsaw Community Schools (Superintendent) Dr. David Hoffert and (Chief Technology Officer) Brad Hagg, as we met with them numerous times. Two of the towers – one will be located at Warsaw (Community) High School and one will be located at Claypool School for that part of the project.”
As for the north tower, McSherry said the county will have to purchase land to place that tower and she had two appraisals for that landed that needed to be approved. After the commissioners approved the appraisals, it moves on to the county council and county attorney Chad Miner will prepare a resolution for the council to approve on this part of the project.
Groninger said they located a property north of Dewart Lake that sits on the continental divide. He said they have a price per acre in mind, which the property owner approved, but a formal survey hasn’t been completed yet to confirm how many acres are there.
The commissioners approved McSherry’s request.
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