Commissioners hold off on new radio requests due to agenda concerns

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Gonzales County commissioners passed Tuesday, Oct. 11, on four agenda items which would have considered spending $135,837.14 on additional radios for four first responder agencies after some members of the court raised concerns about the legality of how both the agenda and the interlocal agreements with those agencies had been worded.

Commissioners had already approved earlier this year spending $1,283,295.61 of the money it received through the American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) for new radios for all first responder agencies in the county.

On Oct. 11, the court had four new interlocal agreements which would have had the county spending an additional $45,384.21 for Gonzales Police Department; $53,182.48 for Smiley VFD; $6,425.50 for the Belmont VFD; and $30,844.95 for Gonzales County ESD 1.

Precinct 3 Commissioner Kevin La Fleur noted the ARPA funds had all been moved to the general fund  by the court and told County Judge Pat Davis taking action based on how the agenda was written would have been problematic.

“Judge, I’ve got a problem,” La Fleur said. “The wording in these and in the agenda items are not correct. In here, in the interlocal, it’s got ‘ARPA funds and on the agenda item, it’s got ‘ARPA funds.’ These are no longer ARPA funds. Remember, we moved everything to the general fund.”

It was at that point that Precinct 1 Commissioner K.O. “Dell” Whiddon asked why the court was having to pass new interlocal agreements.

“Why are redoing these interlocals? Is everyone asking for more radios?” Whiddon asked.

Davis said the city of Gonzales had initially asked for, and had attached to their first interlocal agreement, a request for three handheld radios and three stations that would go into a console that would allow them to back up the Gonzales County Sheriff’s Office when necessary.

“The three stations are actually used to back up the county dispatch and that way we can back each other up with full capabilities,” Gonzales Police Chief Tim Crow said.

La Fleur said Emergency Management Coordinator Jimmy Harless had presented a list of all demands from the entities at an earlier commissioners court meeting and that the court had been “going off Jimmy’s list.”

“Did we get everything that was on Jimmy’s list, right or wrong?” La Fleur asked. “We allotted everything that was on the list (Jimmy) submitted to us. That’s why I was like ‘who got shorted?’ I think the court was more than generous to everybody with what they received.”

“It was my understanding that the request we put in, the quote we put in, had these radios on it and that came right before a commissioners court meeting where you were going to approve those quotes,” Crow said.

“It was on the initial quote that was received and then it got changed,” Davis added. “Initially the quote that was sent in was for those radios. It was changed in the auditor’s office due to the fact they said that was not what we had allocated for them at that time. With those three stations, if the sheriff’s office was to go down, they could actually dispatch through the PD until whatever came back up.”

When asked by Precinct 2 Commissioner Donnie Brzozowski if the GPD could do that now, Crow said “not the full capability. We can speak on the county’s channel, but as far as paging, we don’t have that capability.”

La Fleur asked if GPD had requested 14 mobiles and no portables, as shown on the presentation Harless had compiled, and Crow said that was initially correct.

“We went back and were told to update our quote to make sure we had everything and that quote was submitted to Jimmy’s office and it was my understanding that quote was the one that would be used for the final approval,” Crow said.

“I don’t know when the court officially approved the numbers,” Harless said. “I don’t know whether it was during the presentation or when the quotes came in. After the presentation is when the additional request came from Gonzales PD. So when we contacted Motorola and got the quote, that’s why you see the difference. You have the numbers that were on the presentation and then you have the numbers on the quote. I’m not sure when the court officially approved the numbers.”

La Fleur was adamant the court was using Harless’ numbers as “what we officially went off.”

“I just want to clarify that no one got shorted,” La Fleur said, with Harless agreeing that no one was shorted what was on his presentation.

“I think (Brzozowski) actually asked EMS if they needed more and they said they had been frugal on what they got, so when you said that, they said they could use more,” Davis said. “It’s up to the court to make a decision about what you want to do.”

“Didn’t all of these entities get money from ARPA, too?” Brzozowski asked. “I have thought about this quite a bit and I feel like we did what we probably needed to do when it came to radios. They gave us a list and we gave what they asked for to them.”

“Well, if you’re going to go off the list, then Nixon ought to pay the $48,000 difference in what they initially did if that’s what is fair to all the entities on the list,” said Davis, noting that Nixon had rebid for the radios they wanted from Harris, a different provider, and went with a more expensive radio that cost more money.

“I’m not trying to pick on Nixon but they did not like our bid process, but the city of Gonzales did, Waelder did, all the ESDs did. They didn’t like our bid process, so they had to go out and do their own bid process which came out $50,000 more.”

La Fleur responded that the court had “taken the cap” off the amount being spent on the equipment to get each municipality what it asked for, to which Davis said “but we didn’t give them an open check.”

“If we were really going to be good stewards, we should have gone out for sealed bids for these radios and then gave everyone them and said, ‘here’s your radios’ and the county would have paid for it,” Brzozowski said. “They would have gotten one kind of radio and we would have been done with it. It’s been kind of a wreck; it’s the worst thing I’ve seen since I’ve been here.”

Commissioners tabled the matter until their Monday, Oct. 24 meeting.

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