Work on Cedar County’s new tower site inches closer to completion

HARTINGTON – Work at the site of Cedar County’s new emergency communications tower continues to dominate discussions at the board of commissioners’ meetings.

Kevin Garvin, the county’s director of emergency management and 911 communications coordinator, provided the commissioners with a tower project update on Aug. 22.

He informed the board the roof of the support building at the new tower site – located about two miles north of Hartington – was poured on Aug. 21 and had to be allowed to sit for seven days.

After seven days, the contractor – Jody Koch Construction & Excavation Inc. of rural Hartington – and subcontractors were scheduled to come in and begin the next steps on the support building, starting with the interior and electrical work.

Garvin discussed the tower project’s tentative schedule with the commissioners, noting the crew installing the antennas is set to begin work on Sept. 6, weather permitting, and will take 12-14 days to complete it.

He also told the board the transfer switch for the new tower site’s generator has arrived, but the generator itself will not arrive until late September or early October.

“We discussed the invoices from the contractors and the board requested an explanation of the invoices,” Garvin said in a follow-up interview. “The board requested an explanation of the change orders in the invoices.”

He said many of the changes were due to the fact that some items had been omitted from the original set of plans for the tower project and that the county was approved for Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance.

“As a result, we made changes to help comply with FEMA standards,” Garvin said. “Some items we had planned on in the early drawings would not be available before the project was completed, so we had to switch a few components.

“The board asked that I work with the contractor to identify any future change orders anticipated and obtain a cost for those changes before allowing the contractor to proceed with the work,” he said.

After work had started on the new tower site, FEMA notified the county that the project would be approved for disaster assistance based upon the county’s application from May 2022, when a storm blew the old tower down.

Garvin said the county is working on getting some additional paperwork to FEMA.

“Once the next approval is received from the state and federal agencies, we will begin the process of proving to FEMA what it cost us to achieve the scope of work they approved,” Garvin said. “At that time, they will provide the county the funding approved.”

He and the commissioners also discussed the old tower site’s liquid petroleum gas generator.

“We are having difficulty getting anyone to service it,” Garvin said. “The board decided to put it on the September consignment auction and that the (county’s) District 3 roads shop would transport it down to the auction site.”

The board directed him to contact Creamer Auctions of Hartington to make arrangements and provide information regarding the generator to be sold.

A discussion about dirt work at the new tower site led to the board agreeing that the county had enough equipment within its roads department to handle doing some of the dirt work, depending on timing.

Garvin and the commissioners also discussed the issue of weeds at the old tower site, located in a cattle pasture just north of Hartington.

“It was decided that the District 3 road shop had a weed trimmer that may work for reducing the overgrowth of large weeds so we can safely get equipment moved when the time comes,” Garvin said. “The board will assign an employee, possibly from emergency management, to use the weed trimmer at the appropriate time at that site.”

Another discussion he had with the board was about the fencing for the old and new tower sites.

“The board questioned if the old fence at the old site could be reused in any part at the new site,” Garvin said. “The contractors we have engaged thus far didn’t think so.”