Times Record
SALLISAW, Ark. — The Federal Communications Commission ordered LeFlore County officials to get consent from Sequoyah County officials for its radio signals that have been crossing the county borders or face temporary shutdown of both counties’ systems on Friday.
Sequoyah County Commissioner Jim Rogers assured LeFlore County Under Sheriff Kendall Morgan on Monday that Sequoyah officials really do want to help.
However, Sequoyah commissioners Ray Watts and Steve Carter interjected, saying they need more information.
Assistant District Attorney John Wright advised the commissioners to table the matter without acting upon it, to call a special meeting and to bring in an FCC official to help find a solution.
“I don’t understand the tight deadline. Someone must have dropped the ball,” Wright said.
Watts, the commission chairman, set an emergency commission meeting for 9 a.m. Thursday.
Sequoyah County 911 manager David Slaughter said he will ask representatives of the FCC and the state advisory office to attend Thursday’s meeting.
Morgan told Sequoyah commissioners that LeFlore County erected a new radio tower in February, then raised its antenna higher to eliminate communication dead spots for emergency responders. The resultant signal bled over into Sequoyah County. He said the FCC notified the county by letter May 17 and again on May 27 that it must obtain a letter of consent from Sequoyah County for the use of its air space. He said LeFlore has been told if it does not do so by Friday, both counties face having their radio signals shut down while the FCC reassigns them new numbers.
“And if they shut us down, we’re in a world of hurt in LeFlore County,” Morgan said.
Morgan said most of the county’s emergency response agencies — the Sheriff’s Office, ambulances, Oklahoma Highway Patrol and the towns’ police and fire departments — operate off that tower. For some LeFlore County towns it could take a year or more for them to find funding to install new radio systems, Morgan said. It would cost from $75 to $100 per radio for reprogramming with new signal information, he said.
Morgan asked the commissioners to at least give LeFlore County a deadline extension lengthy enough that LeFlore officials could find a solution.
Slaughter cautioned that once the county states it is OK with the intruding signal, it cannot come back and demand the signal be removed.
Slaughter said the problem is that LeFlore’s signal is intruding into more than half of Sequoyah County, and the potential exists for it to interfere with radio communications between Sequoyah County agencies.
“We can hear them running plates and stuff, and someone could get dropped,” Slaughter said.
Slaughter said if air traffic gets busy, the intruding signal could affect seven of the county’s fire departments. Potentially, he said, signals could be washed out for one or both of the counties.
The FCC assigned Sequoyah County its frequency in 2004 and LeFlore County its frequency in 2005, Slaughter said.
“And there hasn’t been a problem until now,” Slaughter said.
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