Mixup in Who Could Vote Means 911 Board Will Have to Reconvene

The Effingham County 911 Board will have to hold another December meeting after a replaced member participated in the votes at Tuesday's meeting.

The Effingham County Board voted at their re-organizational meeting December 1 to approve appointments to boards and commissions. That included a vote to name new sheriff Dave Mahon as a member of the 911 Board. However, sheriff's deputy Darin Deters still participated on the Board at Tuesday's 911 Board meeting, rather than the sheriff, and voted on several items including the purchase of more than $1.1 million in new equipment for the 911 dispatching points.

Deters has been representing the sheriff's department on the 911 Board and has been part of the committee that worked on the equipment purchases voted on at Tuesday's meeting. He indicated that the sheriff wanted Deters to participate at Tuesday's meeting since he was familiar with the matters on which a vote was taken. However, Mahon should have been the participant at the meeting, as was pointed out by County Board Chairman Jim Niemann after the meeting was adjourned. Niemann attended the meeting, but didn't mention the discrepancy at the time.

As a result, the 911 Board will hold another meeting, on Thursday at 2:30pm, to act again on the items involved in Tuesday's meeting, with the sheriff as a participant.

The equipment purchase to be re-voted on Thursday, involves the acquisition of new dispatch radio consoles, an IP recorder, and a time synch device to synchronize all of the 911 computers.