At a special meeting Tuesday, the Mahaska County Board invited Racom of Marshalltown to submit a bid for a new radio communications system for the County. The Board also hired Freeman and Mazzitello as communications consultants to review bids for the system and make a recommendation. Mahaska County Board Chairman Willy Van Weelden explains why Mahaska County needs a new communication system.
“Since digital communications have come, the Federal Communications (Commission) has narrow-banded the old analog band. And so that’s limiting communication because everything we have right now is analog. So it’s switching to digital….it’s a complete change.”
Van Weelden says he’s not comfortable with having just one bid for a communications system. He says the new system could cost between $3 million and $10 million.