County pursues USDOT Safe Streets grant; proposal includes radios for interagency communications

County staff told commissioners the county will apply for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All program and seek roughly $1,000,257 to support a local safety action plan and related demonstration activities.

Staff said Chief Brown of the City of Laramie asked the county to include purchase of handheld radios as a demonstration activity tied to the safety action plan. "We're putting in this request for the radios as a demonstration activity of our safety action plan," the presenter said, adding the request would cover radios for the sheriff’s office, Laramie Police Department, Road and Bridge and Emergency Management to get those agencies onto a common 800-MHz platform.

Presenters said the city will cover its portion of the required match and the county would fund its share through next fiscal year grant-match accounts; they noted that reallocating other safety-grant funds could permit focusing existing funds on volunteer fire agency needs (for example, generators). Commissioners asked about match amounts and budgetary impacts; staff said the city and county would each be responsible for their portion of the match and the county would budget roughly $136,146 in matching funds in the next fiscal year.

The board voted to approve submitting the USDOT application. Commissioners emphasized that the radios must be tied directly to the county’s safety action plan to be allowable as demonstration activities under the grant program.