Adams County Sheriff Invests in Equipment Upgrades
The Adams County Sheriff’s Office has upgraded or replaced several systems in recent months that are critical to maintaining public safety here in Adams County.
In the summer of 2023, the Commissioners approved the purchase of a new radio system for dispatch and the deputies. Work started in April of this year after working with the contractor’s schedule and ensuring all the required equipment was sourced, which can sometimes still be difficult.
LAT funds the county received were used to pay for this project. Sheriff Zollman reported that the total cost for this work was $421,089.
What did the county get for this much money? The project included the actual radio hardware, the computer consoles that the dispatchers use to control and use the radios, courthouse antenna testing and replacement if needed, new handheld radios for deputies as well as in-car radios, maintenance work on the repeater on No Business and a 3 year maintenance plan.
Additionally, the Sheriff’s Office radio system is expanding from three repeater sites to four. A new repeater site is coming online at Lynes Saddle near Cuprum. Idaho Power donated the equipment in an existing facility to the Sheriff’s Office. All they had to do was reprogram the radio hardware with the correct Sheriff’s Office frequencies.
Lt. Casual Merritt, who manages Dispatch for the Sheriff’s Office, said that the new radio system is very user friendly. They are still working out some minor issues, but the project isn’t quite finished yet either.
Sheriff Zollman had nothing but good things to say about the contractor working this project, Intermountain Communications. They have been ‘awesome to work with’ he said.
The vehicle and deputy radios will be installed this month and offer a significant improvement over what the deputies currently use.
The new handheld radios will be able to link with their vehicle radios. This feature will come in handy in the canyon, and other remote areas. For example, when they are working a traffic accident, they won’t have to walk back to their vehicle to use the radio that can reach dispatch. They will be able to use their personal radio, which will link to their vehicle radio to reach dispatch. This will save time in an emergency situation.
These handheld radios are also able to show the deputy their GPS coordinates which they then can relay to dispatch if needed. These radios also can repeat the last few seconds of radio traffic so the deputy can be sure of what dispatch is telling them.
In a separate project that was recently completed, the County’s 911 system has been integrated with Washington and Payette counties. Valley is scheduled to be joining soon. This project created redundancy for dispatch so that it is much less likely that the public would receive a busy signal when they call 911. If Adams County dispatch is fielding too many calls for a local incident, the calls that they would not be able to handle are routed to one of these counties to be answered, and vice versa. This project cost $199,381 and was paid for through a grant from the Idaho Public Safety Communications Commission.
Lastly, the dispatchers have a lot of records to manage and access on a daily basis. Their Records Management System was recently upgraded and went live on July 9th. This project cost $78,200 and was paid for by funds in their annual budget.
