By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
The Glasgow Common Council on Tuesday revisited a topic from its previous meeting, when discussion was halted while some members still had questions and/or concerns they wanted to voice.
At its Oct. 28 regular meeting, the council approved an updated interlocal agreement with regard to the board that oversees the use of 911 phone-line fees that go to the Barren-Metcalfe Emergency Communications Center.
Early on in the discussion that preceded that vote, Councilman Max Marion, the council’s representative on that board, said one of his concerns with the agreement was that he hadn’t seen anything about a penalty for any party that didn’t pay the amount it was supposed to, but the discussion took a few twists and turns from there. After several minutes of conversation, Councilwoman Marna Kirkpatrick had called for them to stop discussion and take the vote, but discussion continued nonetheless. In the midst of that, Marion returned to his original question about penalties, but while some were looking at the document to find something about that, Kirkpatrick reworded and reiterated her request for a vote.
“I make a motion to call the question,” she said, and after a second, the vote on her motion went in favor of proceeding directly to a vote on the interlocal agreement.
Later, Councilman Patrick Gaunce asked that they place Beverly Harbison, director of the BMECC, on the agenda for the next meeting – the one that took place Tuesday – so she could return for further discussion on matters related to the agreement.
Kirkpatrick said she wanted to publicly apologize for how the discussion was abruptly cut off at the prior meeting, and she had no bad intent in doing that.
Harbison said she had reviewed the earlier meeting and noted Marion’s question about penalties, and she confirmed there is nothing about that in the newly revised document.
She said the 911 governing board had discussed doing so at one point, and then in an attempt to square away some things after a review of a few years’ worth of revenue and expenses, Metcalfe County had been billed around $12,000. In that county, the City of Edmonton’s and the county’s governments each pay half of the expenses, and Edmonton paid its half of that but Metcalfe County Fiscal Court did not. And there was no recourse.
Marion said that at an earlier committee meeting where the agreement was discussed, it seemed that there was agreement that a penalty would be a good thing to keep all the parties – which are the two counties’ governments and those of the four incorporated cities in those counties – accountable. He had wanted the other council members to be aware of it if that had ultimately gotten left out.
Harbison said the most important thing at that time was to get an agreement in place, which now makes it possible for the various entities involved to determine the best way to move forward with establishing new and better funding mechanisms.
The revenue from fees on landline phone lines has decreased drastically over the past several years as fewer and fewer people still have landline phones, but the increase in cell phone use hasn’t made up the difference, particularly as only about 31 cents out of a 70-cent fee actually makes it to the 911 centers after the state takes the rest, Harbison said.
Some of the ideas that have been floated are to put the fee on water or electric bills or to put it on property tax bills, and Harbison said she favors the latter of those, but she also acknowledged that not everyone owns real estate, so some would see that as unfair.
Harbison had asked the council’s public safety committee to not let the movement forward end with approval of the interlocal agreement, and after further conversation rehashing prior discussion of which entities contribute financially to the operation and to what extent, Councilman Terry Bunnell said this was something the council would need to continue to address.
Harbison wrapped up the discussion by reminding all those present that emergency communications professionals are first responders, though largely unseen ones, and everything they do is “just as important as the police department, the fire department, EMS. We’re the start of it all.”
She said that before the fire, police or medical personnel are sent on a call, what happens on the dispatching end – how they take and handle the call, the information they gather and doing so in a timely manner – matters so much.
“And we have to make sure that our No. 1 telecommunicators has the tools to accomplish that,” Harbison said, “and our tools are expensive, so I’m hoping that you all will not put this on the back burner. Revisit it and come up with a solution, OK? That’s all I’m asking.”
In other business, with Councilman Joe Trigg absent, the remainder of the council voted 6-2 to approve first readings of budget-amendment and bond-sale ordinances, on which Glasgow News 1 has reported separately, and unanimously approved the following:
– second readings of three ordinances rezoning the following approximately 6.99 acres at 106 Firethorn St. from agricultural to low-density residential (R-1); approximately 2.47 acres at 850 N. L. Rogers Wells Blvd. from light industrial (I-1) to general business (B-2); and approximately 3.13 acres at the end of Oak Leaf Street at its intersection with Autumn Ridge Road from agricultural to low-density residential (R-1);
– first reading of an ordinance rezoning approximately 0.24 acre at 808 S. Lewis St. from light industrial (I-1) to low-density residential;
– a resolution declaring as surplus certain properties of the Glasgow Parks and Recreation Department, including playground equipment, pool chairs, scoreboards, basketball hoops/backboards, and pull mowers, all from American Legion Park, and authorizing the intended disposition of these properties via electronic auction;
– a resolution declaring as surplus certain properties of the Glasgow Police Department, specifically 13 rifles, and authorizing the intended disposition of those properties as trade-ins for newer weapons;
– a municipal order appointing Amy Irwin to the board of directors for the Glasgow Municipal Airport to finish Denise Dickinson’s term, which ends July 31, 2026.
In addition, through the documents provided to the council members in advance of the meeting and also via announcement at the meeting, the council was notified of two executive orders the mayor had signed adopting a new standard operating procedure for emergency-call location information requests and adopting a new standard operating guideline for the Glasgow Fire Department relating to the Safe Haven Baby Box installed there.
