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HACKENSACK -- Cass County Board voted unanimously Tuesday, Sept. 17, to purchase the county's next generation enhanced 911 emergency radio system from its current supplier rather than Motorola.

Commissioner Scott Bruns was absent from Tuesday's meeting.

Enhanced 911 enables sheriff's office dispatch center employees to accurately locate callers from cell phones.

IES has been the county's 911 equipment supplier since 1997. IES had been buying its dispatch center equipment from Airbus systems, which now has been purchased by Motorola. Motorola will no longer service the exiting main dispatch center equipment sold by other companies like IES at the end of this year.

IES has found another supplier, Solacom, to provide equipment very similar to the system Cass currently uses.

After Cass sheriff's department and computer technology personnel reviewed options IES and Motorola offered for new services, local personnel decided the IES option will be most cost effective, give the county the best option for uninterrupted 911 service and be less expensive.

Motorola offered a new enhanced 911 system, but would require the county to trade in to them its 62 mobile radios and 83 portable radios. Cost would be $622,385.

IES's Solacom system would cost $635,499 or $13,114 more, but would allow the county to keep its old mobile radios and portables. This enables the county to sell the old radios to other agencies for about $50,750, making it a lower cost net option and puts the upgrade below the amount the county budgeted for new system.

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