Jail project 'on time and under budget'

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Things are going well, that's the word from site supervisor Les Paine, to the Vernon County Commissioners during the weekly update at the site of the new Vernon County Jail.

"It's on time and under budget," Paine said. "There will be some changes and something will come up that we don't anticipate at this time but we've allowed for that."

The commissioners discussed the communications options for the new jail and settled on a Springfield vendor, Rayfield Communica-tions. A company came in with a lower bid but it would not meet the deadline and also lacked interconnectivity as specified in the bid request.

Three bids were received in the following amounts: RCS, $183,247.51; Rayfield Communications, $200,421; and Southwest Communica-tions, $237,888.37.

"All things considered, Rayfield Communications' proposed solution is very intelligent, interoperable and expandable," Vernon County Sheriff Ron Peckman said. "Their Schell City solution will give the added benefit of much improved county-wide portable coverage for responders."

Peckman displayed a map of the coverage area Rayfield Communications provided that showed most areas of the county reachable to vehicle mounted radio equipment and portable equipment that relayed through the vehicle.

"There are a few areas in the south that are blanked but as you can see the majority of the county is reachable," Peckman said.

When asked if the other vendors had maps showing how far their equipment would reach Peckman said Rayfield was the only one to provide such a map.

In addition to the other reasons for choosing Rayfield, Peckman said that the company has a specialized grounding system and proposed a solution for intra-jail communications that was simple and inexpensive.

"They have proposed a simple UHF solution with Motorola equipment, which is the Cadillac of radio equipment," Peckman said.

When the move to the new jail takes place the county will depend on city dispatchers to handle the workload until the new communications center is finished.

Several contractors were present for the weekly discussion held in the J.E. Dunn trailer where issues were brought up and solutions discussed.

Issues ranged from installing security hardware to making sure each contractor cleaned up their own refuse.

"Everyone needs to make sure to clean up after themselves," Paine said. "I'm not singling anyone in particular out, everyone needs to do this."

Cleanliness of the work area was also discussed with Paine reminding contractors that smoking and use of chewing tobacco in the building was forbidden.

"There is no tobacco use in the building at all," Paine said. "I don't much care if you chew tobacco and swallow but if you have to use a cup or spit on the ground, don't do it. There is still a lot of work that has to be done by someone getting down on the ground and no one wants to walk around or crawl around in tobacco spit."

Safety, as always, was a concern, Paine brought up the issue of using a GFCI pigtail, a ground-fault circuit interrupter cord, when using electrical equipment. The GFCI cord would trip a circuit breaker if a device plugged into it had a fault that would cause a shock.

"We're starting to pull out the temporary wiring as the permanent receptacles are installed," Paine said. "Everyone should be using a GFCI pigtail when you plug in anything. They're readily available and no one should plug anything in without one."

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