ELIZABETHTOWN -- Essex County lawmakers are balking at paying additional communications costs for the county's Enhanced 911 system.

The idea of paying for two relay circuits from the 911 center in Lewis to the Schroon Lake Fire Station never made it to the floor of the County Board of Supervisors meeting Monday.

The lines would have eliminated the spotty paging that Schroon Lake fire and ambulance volunteers have now.

Instead, Supervisor Ronald Jackson (R-Essex) wanted to rent digital pagers from a commercial vendor, and Supervisor Randy Preston (I-Wilmington) suggested eliminating 911 dispatching for the Town of Long Lake in Hamilton County.

In the end, the Board of Supervisors took no action but asked County Emergency Services Director Raymond Thatcher to attend the regular meeting next Monday to discuss the issues.

WEAK SIGNAL

County Emergency Services Deputy Director Donald Jaquish told supervisors the paging signal is too weak to reach Schroon Lake reliably.

"They do not hear the pages. This is the only solution they found, to control these radio circuits with phone lines."

Installing dedicated phone lines to the Schroon Lake paging transmitter would cost $10,750, plus more than $200 a month per line.

"All the more reason to proceed with the radio project so we can eliminate these circuits," Jaquish said. "It's (the paging) a problem that existed but has gotten far worse in the last year."

He said a general proliferation of radio-frequency use may be to blame for the weak signals.

PROJECT MEETING

The county is preparing to construct a new public-safety radio communications system that would place antennas on more existing towers for better coverage.

A presentation on that project is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, July 9, in the Old County Courthouse at Elizabethtown.

The dedicated lines suggested for Schroon Lake would bring to 13 the number of leased lines the county has for radio communications, including two to Long Lake that supervisors want that town to pay for.