BY DYLAN BESTLER
A Rockland County legislative committee elected to re-open the bids for the Redundant Backup Public Safety Radio Communications Facility.ย ย The bids for this new project were originally put forth in April of 2015.
On April 2, 2015 12 bids were opened up for construction of the Redundant Backup Public Safety Facility. This would be a backup 9-1-1 radio station just in case the main station went down. The original bids were rejected because it required too much funding which the county did not have at the time. The funding would go towards the equipment, plumbing, electrical work, contracting, etc.
At the Public Works Committee meeting on Tuesday, September 13, 2016, Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco brought back up the discussion of the Redundant Backup Communications Facility.ย ย This was the first time the legislative committee had heard about this since the original rejection of the bids eighteen months prior.
A committee of the whole was held the following week on September 20 to discuss the construction of the backup facility. Mr. Michael Rosa, Mr. Robert Gruffi and Sheriff Falco were all in attendance to further discuss this matter. The three men explained to the legislators and the Rockland County residents in attendance why this backup radio facility needed to be built. It is a New York State law that every county, that had the necessary funds, must have a backup radio room if the main one goes down for any reason.
Rosa, Gruffi, and Falco plan for this backup station to be located in the Blue Hill Plaza in Pearl River, to be about 3,600 square feet, and to have identical equipment as the main 9-1-1 radio room in Rockland County that was opened in 2013. An extra $1.5 million will be needed to get this radio room up and running on top of the $6 million that were already put towards this project.
Because the original bids are almost 18 months old, they can no longer be voted on. However, the legislative committee agreed to authorize a re-bidding of the project. If the bids get passed, the committee agrees to increase the funding by the necessary $1.5 million. Robert Gruffi, who works for the Rockland County Department of General Services, says if the bids get passed, he hopes to have the contractors start rapid work on it in February or March so it gets built as quickly as possible.
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