Committee urges UPS maintenance be funded, seeks to remove $13,266 item from reconciliation list

An item of $13,266 for uninterruptible power systems maintenance drew sustained attention from committee members, who said the expense is necessary to ensure traffic-signal reliability on state highways and county-maintained intersections.

"When we had the airplane crash, into the high voltage power lines a couple years ago, this became very evident where the county uninterruptible power supplies were working and state signal locations were not," Committee member asserted during the discussion, urging that the item not be treated as discretionary. Staff explained the State Highway Administration has requested more independent power sources for signals on state highways and that this maintenance covers those costs.

Several councilmembers said they would formally request through the Council President's Office that the UPS maintenance and related operating impacts from capital projects be removed from the reconciliation list or be annotated (an asterisk) to indicate they must be funded if the CIP projects proceed. The Committee recorded a consensus to note the importance of these items and to press the Council President for a process recommendation that the items not remain on the reconciliation list.