MADAWASKA, Maine — Madawaska’s Select Board voted on March 4 to finance a 2023 police cruiser and to purchase a repeater.
The cruiser is a 2023 Ford Police Interceptor SUV Cruiser from Autotronics. It will be leased via Acadia Federal Credit Union over three years at 5 percent interest.
Its total price is roughly $61,777. The board, during its last regular meeting in February, agreed to spend up to $10,000 out of the police equipment reserve to purchase a radio repeater and stalker radar for the cruiser, valued at $8,859.
The board also voted in favor of purchasing a new 100-watt TAIT repeater from Maine-based Radio Communications Management, Inc. for $16,694.
The repeater purchase will primarily be funded with money out of the police equipment reserve account, which after the $10,000 is removed for the purchase of the new cruiser will contain about $16,000. If the final cost of the repeater ends up exceeding the total balance in the reserve account, then the remainder will be paid with the capital purchases account.
Madawaska Police Chief Jamie Pelletier said the repeater that they will be replacing actually went down on Thanksgiving last year. Since then, the town has been using a loaned 50-watt repeater.
“The repeater we’re using right now isn’t even ours,” Pelletier said. “It’s getting us by, but it’s not ideal when you get a little farther away from the tower using some signals.”
The chief said they need a new repeater with a longer signal range as soon as possible, and Select Board Chair Jason Boucher suggested using funds from the equipment reserve account to ensure that the department can get the new repeater quickly.
The board also discussed whether to spend an additional $8,000 to convert the repeater to digital. Board member Renee Deschaine asked if the board could consider this, since the department is using digital radios moving in the direction of using digital technology.
Boucher said that the town should look into this more before making any decisions, as analog has some advantages over digital’s range. He said that after traveling a certain distance away from the tower, the quality of the analog signal will start to degrade and become difficult to hear, but a digital signal will completely cut out at this point.
“I think, to pay the $8,000 for digital, we first have to make sure that we do a site survey to ensure that we have good coverage to see the benefits of going digital,” he said.
