911 Board Discusses Signage Along TREC Trails

Effingham County 911 Board members Tuesday heard from County Engineer Greg Koester and TREC Board Member Gary Welton about improved signage along the TREC trails.

There has been some discussion about making the signage more user-friendly, but there's been no resolution as to who would pay for the signage.

Koester and Welton have looked at the network of trails and attempted to give common sense names to the trails, ones that are used by some who travel the trails. The route along the old Calico Road and that runs from the Effingham Performance Center to the Outer Belt West parking lot would be Calico Trail. The Interstate Bridge Trail would be the route from Calico across the pedestrian bridge over the interstate to the parking lot behind Culver's. The River Bridge Trail would be the trail that runs from the bench at the top of the Calico Trail west to Hilltop Estates. The route that runs from west of the river at the COHIHO Statue would be Switchback Trail. The route that heads back to Effingham High School under the interstate would be High School Trail.

911 board members generally favored the plan, but also liked a proposal to color code the trails. The reasoning is that even a child if a parent became injured or incapacitated on the rural parts of the trail network could tell authorities what color trail they're on. Maintenance of such a system was a concern for some board members.

Welton and Koester were asked to get a plan ready for the County Board's Tax and Finance Committee to consider at next week's meeting.

There was also discussion of lift assists, where someone calls for help out of bed or off the floor if they've fallen. The Board voted to continue the policy since 911 was established in the county that 911 will dispatch the ambulance service to lift assists. Abbott EMS is charging for lift assists and 911 had received a complaint. There had not always been a charge in the past, but liability concerns if no one was sent to help and something bad resulted led the 911 Board to continue dispatching the calls.

Questions over radios for coroner's personnel were addressed as it was found there are enough radios available; allocation was made for one additional mobile and one additional portable radio for the sheriff's department as an additional deputy is being put on duty in June; and discussion of some rural fire department concerns over radio reception problems was tabled as Mike DePoister who raised the issue was not present for the meeting.