By Joel Paris/Staff Writer
Patricia Surrett, Project Coordinator for Metro Mail & Printing Services briefed the Pell City Council on the St. Clair County EMA’s Community Safety Program: Free Emergency Alert Radio Distribution last week.
The radios will be distributed in St. Clair, Clay, Cleburne, Etowah and Talladega counties beginning in January 2009. The funding for these radios comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The requirements for receiving a radio are a valid address in the participation areas and requesting a radio before March 31, 2009. Businesses, churches, schools and homes may all receive a free radio. The radios are backed by a three-year warranty and will alert residents to severe weather, manmade hazards and AMBER alerts.
The advertising campaign will begin in newspapers and radios in mid-December and will continue through mid-January. A direct mail campaign will begin on January 5. The radios will be mailed by April 30. Surrett said that distribution to 70 percent of the market, or delivery of 87,500 radios, will be considered a success.
Other items discussed in last week’s Pell City Council work session:
* The purchase of patrol car cameras for the Pell City Police Department. Chief Greg Turley said that some of the older cameras in the patrol cars are not even being made anymore. The purchase of ten cameras has already been approved in this year’s budget. Turley said the new digital cameras would save $1,000-2,000 per year.
* Raising the fee for public request records was discussed. The current charge is $25 and a ten-dollar price raise was mentioned. Some thought that was too high. “If it’s $25 now, I think $35 is too much,” Councilman James McGowan said. No price was settled on, but Mayor Bill Hereford said, “There’s no question this is reasonable and we’re going to charge for it.” Councilmen Greg Gossett suggested sitting down with all the department heads and coming up with a solution. “It makes a difference who is actually doing the work on these requests,” Gossett said.
* The proposal from Professional Website Design by Inline at a cost of $20,460.14 was discussed. The city is seeking to totally revamp and redesign the current website, which the council agreed is not up to standards. “We might as well not even have a website right now,” Hereford said. The money for this project was found in the budget by City Clerk Jennifer Brown, but is not a line item already in place. Hereford wants the council’s actions to become more transparent through a better website. Council packets, documents and agendas could be placed on the website in addition to the potential to pay certain city bills online. A day after the work session Hereford decided to put the website project up for bid, rather than only considering Inline.
