Not only is the Washington County 911 system more securely located in its new communications building adjoining the county sheriff’s office, it now has a greater signal strength with more affordability thanks to partnerships with local telephone companies.

The dispatch staff officially moved over from their former office in downtown Washington on January 13th, and located on the southwest side of the new building on Lexington Boulevard is one of two new towers the county installed for their new RACOM communications system. Sheriff Jared Schneider mentions there are four other new installations throughout the county that help boost the reception of their system for law enforcement, fire, and rescue agencies, “The thing that we targeted in building our new system with our towers was creating local partnerships and that really helped us keep our tower rental costs down. Building the relationships, not that they weren’t there before but making them better. We were able to keep our ongoing costs for those towers lower than what we were currently paying with the people we were renting towers from before.”

The county also worked with the City of Riverside to be able to put their second tower on their land. Two other installations are near Ainsworth and Brighton with two also placed in the northern part of the county. You can listen to a tour of the new communications building with Schneider and 911 Supervisor Cara Sorrells on Monday’s edition of the KCII Public Safety Special Edition News Magazine on air and at kciiradio.com.