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The Coffee County Capital Outlay Committee approved Purchasing Agent Stephanie Bush to seek bids for the overhaul of the sound system in the Coffee County Administrative Plaza commission hall.

“The problem in the commission hall is that the system is way outdated,” Bush said. “Most of it is set up for a music or concert setting.”

Bush said she the company she contacted with county information technology (IT) department’s Cindy Reagan for advice on what exactly the county needed told them that the sound board is obsolete, many microphones are broken and obsolete and that much of the wiring is bad and shorting out.

“If I try to go in there to adjust microphones – try to turn the volume up so people can hear on the (streaming) side, it cracks, it breaks it squeals,” Bush said. “Though it’s gotten us this far… it doesn’t meet the original model of transparency that (the commission) was going for.”

The request for bid would include new microphones for each commissioner, the mayor, county attorney and parliamentarian, as well as a new mic for the podium, new speakers and an equalization system to moderate each speaker’s volume.

The automated control system computers will be moved to the media room and the mayor’s seat will have volume controls and an adjustment for large and smaller meetings.

“When people can’t hear the meetings, it comes to my office or to Cindy and they say “fix it,” Bush said. “I can’t fix it. I’ve spent countless hours on it , so has Cindy, so has (county internet provider Ben Lomand. There’s no fixing it.”

This project would be the final step of the county’s efforts for additional public access to meetings. Shortly after the late County Mayor Judd Matheny took office, he supported a series of resolutions that required additional advanced notice of meetings and posting of agendas, plus the online streaming of all the county’s meetings.

Capital Outlay Chairman Terry Hershman agreed on the poor condition of the equipment.

“They complain that we don’t talk into (the microphone), but we do talk into them,” he said. “They are just that bad.”