(Audubon) December 6th is the deadline for the Audubon County Board of Supervisors to decide on a financing option for their new Motorola tower.
Bonding, financing through Motorola, and other options are being explored. “The high priority right now is to figure out how to fund that $2.9 million tower and radio upgrade county wide. We can fund it, actually we can finance it through Motorola for about 4.6% interest for ten years. We can bond it today cheaper than that, but the problem is with interest rates rising we might be well above that by the time we got any bonding done. Just trying to grapple with the rising interest rates and figure out how to finance the project.”
Supervisor’s Chairman Doug Sorensen says a last resort could be to bond against wind turbine revenues. This could lead to a tax increase, which they don’t prefer to do, but one way or another the project needs to get done. “We do feel it is an important and essential service of Audubon County to provide radio coverage for emergency, police, and 911. The state system is being mothballed, it’s going down. This is a new system. We just have terrible coverage in the county and to get it fixed this is what it’s going to take so here we are.”
The Board of Supervisors intend to have the new tower built next year.
