contributed photo Marshall County Supervisors Steve Salasek and Dave Thompson discuss how to avoid conflict of interest in the emergency communications upgrade. Marshall County Auditor Nan Benson was also present at the regular meeting where the conversation took place.

A number of emails have been passed among Marshall County officials regarding the emergency communication system improvement project.

At the regular Marshall County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, Supervisor Dave Thompson said the county has been in contact with Kristen Stone, an attorney at Ahlers & Cooney of Des Moines, the selected law firm to overlook the contract.

“They’ve also come back and given us some suggestions,” Thompson said.

He said Stone has some concerns about possible conflict of interest and sole source procurement.

“The reason we’ve got an issue with conflict of interest is our county attorney [Jennifer Miller] is married to the chief officer — Mike Miller — of RACOM,” Thompson said.

Due to that relationship, he said the county is avoiding any perception of impropriety by hiring another law firm to handle the legal aspects of the project.

“We need to protect all the parties — RACOM, our county attorney and ourselves,” Thompson said. “In this day and age, I don’t want any member of the public to point a finger at us and say, ‘You did a sweetheart deal.'”

Stone has provided a couple of suggestions on how to avoid the conflict of interest. Thompson said the county could put the construction of the project out for bid and avoid any single-source procurement, which is something the board has been suggesting.

“I know when we first started out this project, both Bill and myself had some questions as to whether we needed to go to bid on this and we were told no, that we didn’t have to and the attorney definitely thinks we should,” he said. “So that may be an avenue we are going to have to proceed here.”

Thompson said the supervisors should meet with RACOM to get specifications on the emergency communication towers and put the construction out to bid.

Supervisor Steve Salasek asked if a meeting with RACOM should be held within the next few days. Thompson recommended that so the 12- to 18-month project can begin as soon as possible.

Supervisor Bill Patten said putting the project out for bid is not a deal-breaker.

“This is something our attorneys feel we need to protect ourselves,” Patten said.

Since Salasek has had most of the communication with Miller and Diana Richardson of RACOM, he was selected to proceed with the meeting.

Marshall County Communications Commission Director Rhonda Braudis asked the board how long it would take to put the construction of the towers out to bid. Based on her experience, bidding would cause delays and she wondered if people were ready for the extended wait.

Marshall County Emergency Management Director Kim Elder said an emergency RFP so the wait would not have to be too extensive. Elder recommended the board use the emergency RFP rather than wait for a full-length bidding process.

Salasek said he thinks that would be a good idea and said right now they are trying to figure out a way to officially sign the RACOM contract. He does not think the bidding process would extend the length of the project very much.

“I think without question we want this project done. We want it done as rapidly as possible, but we still need to dot our ‘I’s and cross our ‘T’s and follow everything within the Iowa code,” Thompson said.

He said their duty as supervisors is to have fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers and follow proper procedures.

The effort to upgrade the Marshall County 911 system began in December 2019 when State Center Fire Chief Brad Pfantz approached the Board of Supervisors and told them it was rapidly failing. He proposed a 12- to 18-month $3 million contact with RACOM. The proposal suggested the county construct the necessary infrastructure – the towers – and the individual emergency response departments in Marshall County would be responsible for radios and pagers.

The Board of Supervisors did not have any immediate plans on how to finance the project. The members decided in October to borrow $2.7 million from the Health Fund to pay for it.

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Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 or

lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.