It’s no secret the current Lyon County 911 Center and firing range project has not found favor with the whole of residents; however, Lyon County Commissioners feel some of the concerns and negative reactions to the venture stem from misinformation and unanswered questions.
This concern led Lyon County Commissioner Chris Bartel and County Controller Dan Williams to sit down with KVOE News to reiterate many of the key points of the project that have been presented to the commission in recent months. The main focus for Bartel was clarifying the financing process for the project, which is to be funded through a $5 million bond and a portion of county sales tax dollars, as approved last year.
There have been rumblings in recent months that the price tag of the project is significantly higher than originally proposed, with some saying the original cost was quoted at around $500,000, which suddenly rose to over $5 million. Bartel tells KVOE News this is incorrect, saying the total project was never quoted at $500,000; however, an aspect of the project, specifically costs to relocate equipment from the current Lyon County Emergency Communications Center location, was.
Some have begged the question as to why the commission chose to bond out the project, placing the county in debt for over 10 years. Williams explained that the project could have been funded out of sales tax dollars; however, it would have nearly wiped out the county’s cash reserves, causing complications for planned infrastructure updates in the coming years.
Williams also says the county would have been left without a “rainy day fund” should unexpected complications arise. As to placing the county in debt, Williams noted that contrary to what some have come to believe, the county has been debt-free since paying off the cost of the Lyon County Courthouse back in the late 1990s.
He says it is this fact that allowed the county to explore the bond option and repay the cost over the course of a decade in annual installments of approximately $600,000 rather than having to pay the entire sum back in one single installment.
As KVOE News has reported previously, there will be no county property tax dollars allocated to the project, the groundwork for which has already been laid. When it comes to the phases of the project, questions have arisen from residents as to the need for such facilities.
In terms of the shooting range, a project which started to develop quickly after the announcement of a $250,000 federal allocation for the purchase of a new state of the art targetting system, Bartel stated the new range will be located out of a flood plain on a parcel of land, known at the time of its purchase in early April as the Kretsinger Tract, which was purchased for just over $206,000 through COVID-19 relief funds. The property already has the necessary utilities and infrastructure to facilitate a new dispatch center, meaning fewer dollars need to be spent on that front.
The range will be exclusively for law enforcement training and will not be available for public use, another matter that has drawn sharp criticism. Bartel says liability insurance was the key motivator behind this decision.
Other concerns have centered around the suddenness of the project and the inclusion of the dispatch center, which was first broached in mid-April. Bartel says that while those discussions may have started in mid-spring last year, the subject actually goes back more than a decade ago to 2014 when the city and county consolidated emergency communications for the city, county and Emporia State all under one roof inside of White Auditorium, a space the department has since outgrown, with a “Gentleman’s agreement” that within ten years dispatch would be relocated to a designated space, an action that had yet to develop until last year.
Bartel would also comment on questions as to why, if the center was such a necessity, why is the county moving forward with the firing range first? He says that the answer lies in the ticking clock that came with the aforementioned Federal dollars for the shooting range that requires the range to be operational by May of this year, or else see the county forfeit and return the federal funds.
Bartel closed his comments to KVOE News by saying he understands that not everyone is going to be on board with the project and that is acceptable. However, he says as a commissioner, he has an obligation to ensure the correct information is being delivered to the public.
On that note, Bartel welcomed all residents with questions surrounding the project who “legitimately want an answer” to reach out to commissioners or attend their weekly public meetings to discuss it with them.
