Cooke court looks into emergency pagers; Kress sale possible
Jun. 14—A contractor will check out Cooke County's paging system after complaints that emergency workers at two sites aren't getting consistent service.
According to Cooke County Emergency Management Coordinator Ray Fletcher, North Shore Fire Department (located on the northeast end of Ray Roberts Lake) and the county's EMS Station 1 on West Church Street in Gainesville don't always receive the initial emergency tones sent out by county dispatchers in case of medical emergencies. That can cause response delays of 5-10 minutes when a subject's life is in danger.
The county's commissioners court voted 4-1 Monday to spend $9,900 for Trott Communications Group to survey the county's emergency paging system. The county has four towers for the system now, but it may need a fifth in order to assure full coverage for Gainesville and Precinct 2.
The move, spearheaded by Precinct 3 Commissioner Adam Arndt, was opposed by Precinct 1 Commissioner Gary Hollowell, who shepherded the county's $4 million-plus upgrade to UHF/VHF two-way radios for fire departments and other public safety agencies over the last year-and-a-half.
"I suspect what's gonna become of this is they're gonna tell us we need a tower and it needs to be in strategic location. And I paid $9,900 for something I already know," said Hollowell, who thinks the county should look around for existing private transmission tower space before building anything new.
"But I don't know that," Arndt replied, as Precinct 4 Commissioner Matt Sicking and Precinct 2 Commissioner Jason Snuggs nodded in agreement.
Arndt went on.
"What happens, Gary, is you go put up, you spend $10,000 to put an antenna up and then [find] 'Well, that didn't work,' and then you're gonna move it to another place," Arndt said to Hollowell. "My thought is to get somebody that knows what's what with their machines and tells us where we need to be — and it could be on our existing towers."
Hollowell voted against hiring Trott, which is expected to report back to the commissioners' court with recommendations by the end of June.
In other business, Snuggs reported that a few repairs remain to be done within the Kress building, the county-owned office building at California and Commerce streets, before it can be sold.
The Register has learned there is a prospective buyer for the Kress, which the county bought for $900,000 in 2021. No price has been disclosed.
The court voted last year to sell the building and use those proceeds to help finance the purchase of the Prosperity Bank building in downtown Gainesville, next to the county annex. Prosperity Bank plans to build a new branch on East California Street in the next year or two and has been negotiating with county officials about selling them the old space.
