911 Center & Public Safety

You know, we're talking about the bird's eye view of what matters most to Union County. Public safety is at the top of that list. You know, it's easy to take our firefighters, EMS, and law enforcement for granted until you need them. But public safety is not something that any thriving community can do without. You have to have public safety as number one. I wouldn't want on my conscience someone to get hurt or pass on because we cut fire department or sheriff department.

Public safety, I feel, is the most important aspect of the county government here in Union County. Public safety is kind of in the back of your mind that I may need it one day, but when you need it, you need it. And you want the best and you want it to be there quick, fast, easy, and so that's what SPLOST funds does. It enables us to be able to respond to your emergency, have the best, greatest equipment that we can to help solve your emergency, maybe even on the worst day of your life.

You know, SPLOST funds a lot of our Sheriff's Office. It's very important that SPLOST is there for the citizens of this county. People on fixed income can't afford to keep their property taxes keep going up. One of the major benefits of SPLOST is that it allows visitors and tourists who use our services to help fund them. Emergency services are used by all the residents here, but also the visitors, the people that come here for tourism who come and shop. They also have accidents. They also have other things that public safety is needed. They have medical emergencies. So that SPLOST penny that they spend here helps also pay for those services that when they come and visit our county, they're utilizing.

Now we've got a new 911 center. It should be done by the middle of the year. SPLOST is funding that. The new 911 center is one of those must-have situations that we have to have and they've needed one for many, many years. As great as this 911 center has been for the community, it's highly in need of an upgrade. With more people moving into the community and more visitors visiting the community, we're going to be able to expand our capacity of the 911 center by over 60%. The new building here, it's going to be more space. We're going to have the ability to grow for the next 20 years. We need that help. We need those pennies to come in to help us pay for all this very expensive equipment to keep us on the tip of the spear and ready to respond to any emergency.

So here in Union County, we do not compromise when it comes to public safety. And thanks to SPLOST, we don't have to.