Commissioners hear progress of new EOC

Progress continues on construction of a new Emergency Operations Center for 911 dispatching.

Putnam County Commissioners Jim Baird, Gene Beck and Kristina Warren approved purchase of a generator, transfer switches and uninterrupted power supplies at a total of $70,433 during a regular session Monday evening.

The cost of the diesel generator bid by Cummins Crosspoint, Indianapolis, is $39,168, while the two transfer switches will cost $16,065. The Toshiba UPS was bid at $20,200. The generator will also serve the county highway department.

The total is about $12,000 less than budgeted, dispatch director David Costin told the commissioners.

A lot of work has been going on at the EOC construction site, located adjacent to the county highway department. In the last 30 days, progress includes installation of concrete walls, completion of underslab plumbing and electrical, exterior grounding system started, backfilling for interior concrete slabs, damp-proofing and installation of the radio tower.

In the next 30 days, architect Terry Burnworth said he anticipates backfilling around the building, installation of the precast concrete roof and interior concrete slabs, completion of exterior grounding system, interior framing and roofing to begin, and closing the building for heating.

The commissioners also approved bids for furniture and radio equipment.

They approved a bid of $48,900 from XYBIX for dispatch center furniture and installation. The furniture must be custom built for the dispatch room. The budgeted estimate for this part of the project was $48,900.

They also accepted radio equipment bids of $162,618 from J&K Communications to include new transmitters, moving existing transmitters, moving existing UHF link radios, moving of stand-by transmitter, 800 MHz equipment and program management.

The estimate for this part of the project was $138,400.

And for volunteer fire pagers, a bid of $25,139 from P&W was accepted for 71 Motorola pagers.