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March 10, 2010

City votes to join pack of city governments using CodeRED

Lauren Ricks The Athens Review

ATHENS — The Athens City Council voted to join a pack of other area government entities using the CodeRED Emergency Management System on Monday evening.

The East Texas Council of Governments will pay the initial cost of the system amounting to $6,000, said City Administrator Pam Burton.

She said the ETCOG applied for a grant through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to fund the program.

The Henderson County Commissioners Court voted last month to participate in the system.

“The ETCOG received a $1 million contract to provide emergency contact,” Athens Fire Department Chief John McQueary said. “The county has accepted CodeRED also. The reason I am in agreement with them is because it is a safety net.”

The city will have 18,750 CodeRED minutes available to it from January to Dec. 31, McQueary said. If the city exceeds the alloted minutes, it will be charged 33 cents for every excess minute used. McQueary said he will keep track of how many minutes the city uses.

“This is a year-by-year contract with the ETCOG,” he said. “If it is a matching fund next year, I would recommend we opt out.”

McQueary said the city will use the system only after its minutes are used in the FirstCall emergency contact system.

McQueary said FirstCall has been used rarely, and suggested several other uses for the systems, including notifying citizens of street closures and other non-emergency events.

“It serves for mass communications,” Athens Chief of Police Buddy Hill said. “The system automatically calls land lines in that radius.”

Hill said both CodeRED and FirstCall allows cell-phone users to register their numbers, allowing them to be called when they are in an affected radius.

“It can be used for a lot of things,” he said. “It is a fine-line you walk. If you overuse it, you run out of minutes, and people aren’t as attentive to it.”

The council also:

• authorized staff to advertise for a new dump truck for the Street Department. Director of Utilities Glen Herriage said the department’s current truck is a 1983 model with over 75,000 miles;

• authorized staff to advertise for a new sewer truck for the Line Maintenance Department. Herriage said the truck was budgeted last year, but was not purchased due to difficulties with the manufacturer. He said the current sewer truck has over 96,000 miles;

• approved a resolution abandoning a portion of an alleyway behind Murchison Park, out to west Corsicana Street, as requested by GMF Investments, Inc. and Prosperity Bank.

Burton said the city had previously abandoned part of the alleyway behind the current location of the bank. She said the city will retain a utility easement.

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