A few months after purchasing several dozen vehicles for public safety departments, the Henry County Board of Commissioners voted at its January 7 regular meeting to approve the purchase of emergency response packages for those vehicles.
A total of $524,914,16 was authorized for the second phase of the vehicle overhaul, which includes the installation of lights, radios, mounted bumpers and grills along with other support equipment. The bid was awarded to West Chatham Warning Devices of Savannah.
In September of last year the board approved the purchase of seven 2020 Chevrolet Tahoe 4WD special support vehicles for the Henry County Fire Department, ten 2020 Ford Explorer pursuit utility vehicles for the Henry County Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division, and 40 2020 Ford Explorer pursuit utility vehicles for the Uniform Patrol Division.
Capital funds are being used for the purchases.
Some other recent major equipment acquisitions for public safety were on display outside the administration building during the commission meeting, as pointed out by deputy county manager Brad Johnson during his report to the board. He announced that six new police recruits had been sworn in since the board’s December meeting and 16 new firefighter/EMTs had graduated from the fire academy.
“We now have few open positions, and we will have better response times due to having more people on the streets,” he said.
Johnson cited in particular the work of the county’s in-house fire academy, which had consecutive classes with 110-percent pass rates on national testing. The statewide pass rate for EMT students on the first round is 54 percent, he added. Recruits go through 50 weeks of training before they begin working at a fire station for the HCFD.
In other business, Dee Clemmons was named the board’s vice chair for 2020 in accordance with its regular practice of rotating that position.
The board approved the acquisition of five different parcels of land for the ongoing expansion of West Village Parkway, including 124,985 square feet of right of way, 15,556 square feet of permanent easement, 14,468 square feet of temporary easement and 546 square feet of driveway easement.
A resolution was passed approving a Family Connection operating grant for Connecting Henry from the Georgia Department of Human Services. Connecting Henry gets funding every year through a reimbursement grant for which no local match is required. The funding for the 2021 fiscal year is $48,000.
