Dispatcher seeks more efficient radios

For clearer calls

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

BROWNVILLE — During a Dec. 16 meeting of the selectmen, town officials met with Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department Dispatch Sgt. Gary Grant. Grant said he wants to travel around to different county communities “and come to these meetings so you can have a face to put to the radio.”

“Brownville is at the edge of what we can hear right now, sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad,” Grant said. He explained he was an EMT/firefighter for two decades, so Grant knows how frustrating it can be for first-responders when calls are cut off or dropped.

“We are trying to make some steps forward as far as radios go,” Grant said, as grants are being applied for to improve the communications technology. “A lot of equipment is literally from the 70s and 80s, a lot of the equipment isn’t compatible with updating it,” he said.

When asked by Select Chair Dolly Perkins, Grant said about $20,000 to $30,000 in upgrades is needed. He said the improvements could be carried out over the next five to 10 years depending on the grant funding that is secured.

In other business, town officials met with Terry Knowles for an update on the dog sled races scheduled for Jan. 30-31.

“This is the seventh year we are having the Dog Days of Winter and Brownville-KI and Beyond Sled Dog Race,” Knowles said. He said the event is hosted through the efforts of many, including the town, American Legion, Piscataquis Amateur Radio Club, Maine Highlands Sled Dog Club, General Store and More, Brownville Jct. United Methodist Church, the town’s snowmobile club and Maine Forestry Service.

“We are adding a race on Sunday this year, a fun, no trophies race and we will see how many stay,” Knowles said with the 2016 event expanding to two days. The plan is for this race to be 20 miles long, and Saturday’s competitions will be at distances of 20 and 30 miles. A finalized schedule for the Dog Days of Winter and Brownville-KI and Beyond Sled Dog Race will be released in January.

Also in the new year, the town is looking to hold a special town meeting concerning a funding package for a sewer project. The town attorney is reviewing a draft of the warrant article, which could be signed by the selectmen in the near future to set up the meeting in order for the item to be voted on.

Town Clerk Kathy White said every year social service agencies and other nonprofits make requests to have the community make small contributions to these groups, such as through a vote at the annual town meeting in March. “Previous boards felt if people wanted to do that they could do it on their own, they didn’t want to put it in people’s tax bills,” White said.

The board then passed a motion to not fund any of these requests through the municipal budget.