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The Arizona Department of Homeland Security is donating $7,773 to the Apache Junction Police Department to pay for handheld portable radios.
“We might be able to get one-and-a-half radios for that amount of money. Each radio is somewhere between $6,000-$6,500 per radio. They’re not cheap,” AJPD Chief Thomas E. Kelly said to the City Council at a recent meeting.
“They are our regular radios that we use on 800 MHz. Actually what they’re doing is, Motorola is making the current ones we currently have --- they’re not making the same equipment any longer --- so they’re actually being funneled through so we’re having to replace all of the radios. So we’re in the process of trying to get funding through different mechanisms to replace the couple-$100,000 cost,” he said.
The Apache Junction City Council on Jan. 23 approved an agreement with the Arizona Department of Homeland Security for $7,773 in fiscal year 2018 reallocation funds.
It is customary for the Arizona Department of Homeland Security to have funds roll over from a previous funding year, Heather Patel, the city’s program and resource manager, said in a memo the council.
“When funds become available, the East Region Advisory Committee and the Arizona Department of Homeland Security determine how those funds are to be reallocated. They decided to award the funds to the City of Apache Junction Police Department,” she said.
In October, the City Council entered into an agreement with the Arizona Department of Homeland Security to grant AJPD close to $30,000, Chief Kelly said to the council.
“We went back and asked them about the extra funds that they had in their account from 2018 and if they would consider granting about $7,773 additional funds into our request for the handheld portable radios, which we’re looking to fund through the police department,” he said. “Heather had done the work on it and she had originally set up a lot of the interconnections with the department of homeland security.”
Richard Dyer Managing Editor | East Valley @RHDyer
Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia, Inc.. USA, since 1987.
Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions.
He also is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows
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