Last night (Tues) Asotin County voters approved an increase in the sales tax to fund improvements to emergency communications. Now that it has passed, the Emergency Communications Advisory Committee will figure out what to do with the money that will be coming in.
The committee is staffed by police and fire chiefs in Asotin County and Nick Bacon, the Emergency Management Director.
He says the next step is for the committee to get together and assess the current needs and what plans are for the future.
“Things like regular and preventative maintenance, how much do we want to set aside into reserve for capital projects like new towers or replacing existing technology with newer technology and things like that.”
The committee has a little time to figure out the first priorities. The sales tax increase doesn’t go into effect until April 1st next year and the committee will get the first payment in May.
The vote passed with a 10% safety margin of “yes” votes, but nothing is official until the numbers are certified.
