By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

            Levy County Commissioners witnessed the swearing-in of their newest member, Commissioner Desiree Mills, at Tuesday’s board meeting and immediately dived into their agenda with Mills making several motions.

            Mills was elected in the August primary to serve the remainder of former Commissioner Mike Joyner’s term of office. She will seek re-election in 2024. Joyner passed away in 2021.

            She was sworn into office by Elections Supervisor Tammy Jones with her husband, Jerry Mills, holding a Bible. Their daughter, Tori Mills, and son Jerry Mills, III watched from nearby.

            Mills gave a brief statement thanking her supporters and those who voted to elect her to the position.

            Property Appraiser Jason Whistler will be sworn into office Friday.

            Gov. Ron DeSantis honored the county’s request to have Mills and Whistler sworn into office as early as possible. Whistler replaces the late Osborn Barker who also passed away in 2021.

            Whistler made a brief appearance at the county commission meeting to present a routine business item to the board associated with the property appraiser’s budget.

            Radio Communication Bids

            One of Mills’ first actions was to join her fellow board members in approving the ranking of three bids from communications companies for the Levy County Sheriff’s Office’s future radio communications system.

            Commissioners selected the bid submitted by Communications International. County staff was authorized by the board to negotiate with the company on a final contract.

            Communications International was the second lowest bidder at $9,966,648.

            John Liptak, a representative of the lowest bidder, Motorola, questioned why his company’s bid of $9,779,662 wasn’t selected. He said it was the lowest bid. The third bid was from Williams Communications for $11,042,547.

            County Coordinator Wilbur Dean said there were important factors the county considered when evaluating the bids other than just price.

            Procurement Coordinator Alicia Tretheway said one of the factors that contributed to the county’s decision not to select Motorola was its proposal to remove a radio communications tower in the Williston area as a cost savings.

            Tretheway said the county has had radio communications coverage problems around Williston in the past and removing a tower site wasn’t viewed favorably by county staff.

             “Motorola provided a cost savings if we removed the Williston RF site. We would save $759,999, but there’s really no services down there. That was a big concern for Clayton Drew,” she said.

            Drew served the county as an advisor on radio communications.

            In view of past radio coverage problems in the Williston area, “that definitely wasn’t an option,” Drew said.

            He said a second part of Motorola’s proposal that wasn’t viewed favorably by staff was to share part of the Citrus County system with Levy County.

            “We want to maintain control of our system,” he said.

            County Commissioner John Meeks said the county reserves the right to take the lowest and best bid. He said the county wants perfect coverage in every corner of the county.

            “I know there was concern from the very beginning – we were not going to buy another radio system that did not give us perfect coverage everywhere in the county,” Meeks said. “We’re not going to take any chances. We already went down that road.  The value of our employees in Emergency Medical Services, fire, and law enforcement is too important to risk it on sketchy coverage.”

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Board of County Commission Regular Meeting October 18, 2022; Posted October 18, 2022