County looking to secure radio tower sites

DOVER-FOXCROFT — Sites are in the process of being secured for Piscataquis County’s $6.9 million emergency radio system project.

The endeavor to fix the county’s emergency personnel radio communications has been years in the making. Since 2020, Piscataquis County and municipal emergency officials have been updating outdated infrastructure and finding solutions to issues stemming from the hilly and mountainous terrain of the region. They are trying to get the best coverage for the best use of funds.

There are many moving parts to a radio system, especially with the county not owning all the infrastructure. With many sites being leased, tower owners will need to be involved and engineers will need to conduct structural analyses. 

“The tower radio project’s moving along,” County Manager Mike Williams said during a county commissioners meeting on Tuesday morning. “We’re still working with (the Land Use Planning Commission) on one site and the other site we’re moving along. We’ve actually got a purchase and sales agreement to put a tower on which has been part of the plan right along.”

An attorney for property owners on Blair Hill in Greenville will be getting back to the county, Williams said. Project Manager Chris Lavoie is working on several other potential tower sites.

There are two more years on the grant portion of the project, including ARPA funds, Williams said.

There are a lot of moving parts to a radio system, especially with the county not owning all the infrastructure, Lavoie said previously. With many sites being leased, tower owners will need to be involved and engineers will need to conduct structural analyses.

In 2024, Boucher said seven new tower sites would cost $2,695,000 above the $4.2 million already awarded in federal monies, bringing the project total to $6.9 million — an amount that still needs to be finalized. 

The county paid Communications Design Consulting Group $27,000 for a feasibility study on radio communications, which was presented in November 2021. Before the feasibility study, Boucher spent months meeting with members of area fire and police departments and toured sites around the region, including the locations of about a dozen transmitters.

Lavoie, who is the Penobscot Regional Communications Center director where he helped oversee a communications upgrade, was hired in the spring of 2025.

Lavoie will be paid $85 an hour as needed over the estimated two years-plus of the project. A previous estimate had Lavoie working 1,000 to 1,500 hours for $85,000 to $127,500 over the duration of the project.

In other business, the commissioners authorized taking nearly $6,400 out of the public safety capital account to help fund a forthcoming NARKsafe Ductless Testing Workstation for the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Office.

The workstation is a specialized safety enclosure designed for law enforcement and forensic professionals to analyze unknown substances and illicit drugs safely. It eliminates exposure to dangerous airborne particulates — such as fentanyl and cocaine — by establishing a negative-pressure containment environment. 

An order for the workstation was canceled by another department and the sheriff’s office has the potential to have it delivered to the patrol and investigation building on Hudson Avenue with the $6,400.

“It’s either that or wait for six to eight months,” Young said. He said the capital account has $35,000.

The workstation would benefit the entire region with its testing capabilities

Funding also comes from a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant secured for the sheriff’s department by the Piscataquis County Emergency Management Agency.  

Last month Chief Deputy Todd Lyford told the commissioners he believed the approximate cost is $11,000. 

County EMA Director Deb Hamlin said the local emergency planning committee is set to meet on Thursday at Northern Light Mayo Hospital.

Each Maine county EMA is required to have a local emergency planning committee to focus on hazardous materials and chemicals and how to mitigate and/or handle an incident.

A tornado response planning group has been started.

“We just felt both of those warnings were too close,” Hamlin said about a recent pair of warnings for elsewhere in Maine. “We’re prepared for flooding and ice storms but not something that happens so quickly. We have a pretty good group together to make a response plan.”

After a July commissioners meeting, a couple on the Hamm Road in Orneville Township spoke with Williams about potentially opening the road to ATVs “to get out and to get to certain areas rather than trail.”  

Williams said the commissioners would consider the request if a local ATV club supports it by placing signage and maintaining the route.

ATV traffic could result in the Hamm Road needing to be graded once or twice more per year, for a cost of several thousand dollars.