Senoia

residents learned Monday night it may soon cost the city

more than $100,000 for radio dispatch service for the

city's police officers to use.

The city

recently learned Coweta County would no longer supply

service for free and the city would have to find an

alternative for the police force to phone in field

reports.

It's not

emergency phone calls to the county emergency 911 system

that are the problem, said police chief Ben Thomas. It's

all the radio calls generated from the officers, such as

running tags and plugging into the GCIC computer, he

said.

The city is

left with two options. It can either contract with the

county to provide the services or start up its own

dispatch system, he added.

The county

was originally scheduled to stop the service in July, but

Mayor Joan Trammell said the city now has until January

to figure out a solution.

Starting

its own system might make sense, since the city could

rotate officers to man the radio, she said.

Thomas is

working with the city of Grantville, which also has to

find a solution, to locate funding for the service.

In a letter

to Sen. Paul Coverdell, Thomas estimated the cost of

equipment and acquiring frequencies at $120,000.

If the city

decided to contract the service from the county, Thomas

said the cost would be $90,500, but there was no

guarantee how long the county would supply the service.

He added it would take seven employees to staff the

center on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week schedule.

Councilman

Robert Hannah asked if the city could possibly contract

with the city of Newnan to provide the service, but

Thomas said that is not feasible.

"They're

on a different frequency. It would cause too many

problems switching between frequencies for regular calls

and getting other information," he said.

Trammell

asked the council to evaluate the problem and be ready to

come to a solution before the end of the year.