City to build new radio tower for law enforcement

Mar. 25—HENDERSON — Rep. Don Davis presented Henderson officials with a big check for over $2.175 million for a new radio tower on Monday.

The tower is planned to go up in northern Henderson, yonder past the ball fields in that area, said Assistant City Manager Paylor Spruill.

The point is to provide law enforcement with better radio service across the whole city, said Police Chief Marcus Barrow. They use the Voice Interoperability Plan for Emergency Responders, a statewide system of radio towers, like many law enforcement departments. The state Highway Patrol manages it.

Most of Henderson is located at the edge of several towers' radii — one in Watkins, one in Granville County and another in Warren County. Without a local tower, there are a few areas that lack service altogether. When officers flick on their radios in some areas of Flint Hill, for example, all they hear is static, said the police chief.

The system is also more suited to outside use, since Highway Patrol officers don't often enter buildings. The new tower will give local agencies better coverage, indoors and out — overall streamlining communications, added Fire Chief Tim Twisdale.

City Manager Terrell Blackmon praised the two chiefs and Spruill, who all worked together to write the proposal sent to Davis' office.

Mayor Melissa Elliott remembers discussing the new tower nearly a decade ago. The funding "means everything" to the community and those who protect it. Henderson's public safety workers deserve the best, she said.

Presentations like those on Monday are the "best part of the job," said District Director Kimberly Mack. Davis spoke last, saying the committed millions is an example of tax dollars working for eastern North Carolina, an area that hasn't often seen those sorts of resources.

Henderson's request was one of 15 that Davis accepted and the largest. Those 15 municipalities beat out 85 other applicants.

The funding is an appropriation in the federal budget that will be available sometime in 2025, said Spruill. The city owns the lot on which it plans on erecting the three-legged, 300-foot-high tower, so once it takes that check to the bank, so to speak, it can start construction.

Who exactly will build the tower has yet to be determined, though.

Its range will be 100 square miles, so around 10 miles in every direction. Spruill said some parts of the tower may even be leasable, meaning there could potentially be benefits for cell service, though it's too early to say whether that will actually happen.

The VIPER system emerged in 1995 as a priority and the attacks on the World Trade Center six years later made that need all the more apparent, said Spruill.