Gilford to replace outdated police dispatch software through federal grant

GILFORD — Current police dispatch software is pushing 30 years old. New, federal grant money could help, after the selectboard unanimously voted to accept the funds last week.

The selectboard voted 3-0 at Wednesday’s meeting to accept $273,000 through a Department of Justice grant to go toward a computer-aided dispatch software system called PRO Suite.

Nobody spoke at the public hearing preceding the vote, but Clerk Richard Grenier had some questions.

“To me, there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” Grenier said. “This grant is nice, and I’m going to vote for it, but what are the strings attached?”

Police Chief Dustin Parent said the grant will cover the costs for five years, and after that it will be $38,000 to run the program.

One string Parent said works in the department’s benefit is that other agencies also have aging or outdated software, and will soon need to get on board. He said this will ultimately lower the cost to the town, once the grant money is spent.

Parent said with the software's age, it can’t even be maintained anymore.

“There’s no more fixing it,” Parent said. “We’re ultimately going to have to go to something. This is by far the best option.”

Grenier understood software becomes outdated quickly, and asked if the new software will be getting updates over those five years the grant covers. Parent said the grant money will cover the updates, and noted the current software the department uses costs $21,000.

The board voted 3-0 to approve accepting the grant as unanticipated funds.

Bridge repairs

The selectboard unanimously approved the public works department using $232,910 from the Bridge Maintenance Capital Reserve Fund to repair the Summit Avenue Bridge. The work will be done by Evroks Corporation, a company from Northfield.

Public Works Director Meghan Theriault said in the town’s Capital Improvement Plan there was $250,000 to start the engineering for the bridge deck rehabilitation. She started the process by talking with necessary state contacts, as well as engineers, who said the bridge could technically stay in the same condition. She found the main focus needed to be protecting the steel girders underneath the bridge.

“The bridge could actually go several years before you have to dump on the deck,” Theriault told the board.

Theriault said they looked into this, and she got pricing from engineers and contractors, and instead of going forward with $250,000 for engineering of the deck, the engineer recommended putting that money toward rehabilitating the girders, so they won’t deteriorate any more.

“What’s happening is the salt gets through the concrete,” she said. “It actually gets through and spills out. It actually can start to erode the steel, and if you let that go too long, you can get a section loss.”

She said sandblasting and painting the girders will work to protect them. However, the bridge deck will definitely need to be replaced in the future, based on what the engineers saw.

Theriault said waiting up to five years gives the town time to prioritize.

“I think we’re going to have to, when we get to budget, we’re going to have to kind of look at Glendale Docks and the bridge, and figure out which goes where,” Theriault said. “But just knowing that this can go a little further, and especially if we do this work it can go further.”

Theriault told the selectboard this was a good price for the rehabilitation work. Originally, the engineer told her it would cost about $300,000. The work will include sandblasting, containment, and painting. Theriault said rehabilitation involves every girder, every 10 feet, off the abutment. The bridge will also be jacked up about 0.25 to 0.5 inches to fix the hardware, than connect the I-beams to the “bridge seats.”

“It is kind of cleaning out any packed rust, and things like that in there,” she said.

She also said an anti-graffiti coating will be installed as recommended, which will seal and protect underneath the bridge.

The request was approved with a 3-0 vote.

An expensive stretcher

The selectboard unanimously approved spending $33,467.36 from the Gilford Fire Rescue Ambulance Reserve Fund for a new stretcher.

Vice Chair Gus Benavides said it looks expensive, but one back injury for an EMT or firefighter could be disastrous. Fire Chief Steve Carrier agreed, saying if someone were out for six months with a serious back injury, that would be significant. When it comes to the number of times it is used, and the safety of residents and town employees, it is needed.

Earlier in the meeting, Carrier updated the board on the department’s activities, and said they had their highest nine-month total ever, at 1,509 incidents through the end of September. He said there were record highs in January, March, and May, but a 10-year low in February.

Carrier said the stretcher is used thousands of times a year.

The stretcher will be coming from Stryker, which Carrier said provides a top-tier product. The selectboard approved the funds being spent with a 3-0 vote.