By Shannon McFarlin News Director
Paris, Tenn.–At a busy session Wednesday, the Henry County 911 Board heard updates on the progress of a Central Dispatch system, county-wide radio coverage, new online mapping, new radio system for city and county schools and approved the 2022-2023 budget.
Executive Director Mark Archer said all parties involved agree Central Dispatch “is something we should do” at this point, but money issues “still have to be worked out.” A Central Dispatch for Henry County appears to be in the future “but it is not going to happen overnight,” Archer said. “Hopefully, it is going to happen within this year.”
The county-wide emergency radio system has shown great improvements as the digital system continues to be optimized, Archer said, “and at this point it’s probably as good as it’s ever going to get.”
IT Director Chad Howard provided an overview on the signal strength through the county and said, “There are just a couple of places now in the county where there is no signal.”
Henry County Director of Schools Dr. Leah Watkins said, “It’s much better for our bus drivers now”.
Archer said training sessions will be held with all law enforcement in the county “so they know the best ways to communicate” with the county’s system “fully optimized right now. We’re one of the few counties that is on the cutting edge of this.”
In light of recent incidents nationwide, Archer said meetings also will be held with city and county school personnel on preparing for emergencies.
In other business:
–Upon recommendation of Archer, the board approved GI Cloud as a new online mapping service. He said GI Cloud’s mobile product is better than what the county has been using and provides a more professional-looking map. He said, “We’ve had a dramatic increase in calls from people saying they can’t find roads on our online mapping, so we were looking for another service.”
He also recommended that people should use another search engine than Google when using the county mapping system.
–Looking ahead to future projects for the 2022-2023 Fiscal Year, Archer listed painting board room and staff offices, security cameras for the new dispatch center, a CAPSOL NS texting and notification program (to bypass cell carriers so that texts go out to first responders and citizens who sign up for the system, cellular booster for the Emergency Central Dispatch Building on Brewer St.
Other future plans include a gate placed in the back of the ECD building and purchasing land behind the building to make it more secure.
Photo: 911 Director Mark Archer, center, gives reports while board members Monte Starks, Sheriff Josh Frey and Dr. Leah Watkins listen. (Shannon McFarlin photo).