When severe weather threatens Allen County or when someone goes missing many residents receive immediate alerts through the CodeRED telephone system.
Allen County commissioners Tuesday morning approved one-year contract extension with the service provider in Ormond Beach, Fla. Cost for about 5,000 telephone contacts is $11,343.50. The money will come in equal parts from sheriff’s, emergency management and 911 dispatch budgets.
Pam Beasley, emergency management director, lobbied for renewal.
Commissioners hesitated in their decision until Sheriff Tom Williams, Beasley and Angie Murphy, 911 director, said their budgets could stand the expense.
When Allen County signed on with the service four years ago, all registered phone numbers in the county were included for alerts having to do with such things as scams, missing persons and criminal activities.
For weather alerts, customers signed on separately. Some have since dropped out, Williams said, because “they didn’t want to get a call at 2 o’clock in the morning about a flash flood.”
Parents of USD 257 students also get calls with fast-breaking school information, such as Tuesday morning when severe winter weather led to cancellation of classes.
“The district could buy software — districts in Moran and Humboldt have — to do the same thing,” Williams said.
But why, he added, when it can piggyback on the county’s at not cost.
“We’d be delighted to have Humboldt and Moran schools to join us, too,” he said.
OVER THE NEXT five months several improvements will be made to Allen County Courthouse and the emergency response center, 410 N. State, with the county’s cost being 40 cents on the dollar.
Joe Hurla of 360 Energy Solutions, Lawrence, won access for up to $150,000 in federal grant money through the Kansas Energy Office, in a 60-40 match.
Total of the projects will be $249,426, with the county’s share $99,770. Projection is the county will recoup its costs in just under eight years through energy efficiencies and utility savings.
Among the projects are replacement of the emergency response center roof, a new cooling tower at the courthouse, piping upgrades in the courthouse and state-of-the-art courthouse energy management controls.
Hurla’s company has arranged contracts for the work, including with several local contractors, and will manage construction.
CLIFF RALSTIN, owner of the Humboldt Union, asked commissioners to make his the official county newspaper and to publish county legal notices in it.
For as long as anyone can remember, The Iola Register has been the official county newspaper.
Ralstin said his newspaper had a circulation 1,000 and was the official newspaper for Humboldt and USD 258. He suggested alternating the designation year to year between the Union and the Register, which has a circulation of about 3,500 and publishes six days a week. The Union is published one day a week, on Thursdays.
IN ANNUAL reorganization, Rob Francis was elected chairman of the commission. Commissioners for years have “passed around” the chairmanship. Dick Works, then the only incumbent, led the commission two years ago and Gary McIntosh was the chairman last year.
