The Kenai City Council approved the purchase of public safety radios at last Wednesday’s council meeting.

The Kenai Police Department applied for and received a $100,000 grant through the State of Alaska Department of Public Safety. The grant will go toward purchasing portable radios and accessories for Kenai’s Police Department.

In a memo to the city council, Kenai Police Chief David Ross supported the resolution for the sole source purchase for the radios and accessories from Motorola Solutions. The total for the new supplies comes out to $100,027.79, with the remaining $27.79 coming out of the police operating budget, according to the April 8 memo.

The grant will cover the cost of 19 radios.

During the council meeting, City Manager Paul Ostrander said the department will need to purchase specific radios to match the radios already in use.

In his memo, Ross said there are a number of reasons to use a sole source with Motorola.

“KPD and KFD are both fully equipped with Motorola radios, and their personnel has experience working on and programming the Motorola radios,” the memo said. “The departments also have accessories in place for managing these radios. These funds are sufficient to only replace 19 radios or approximately 40 percent of the portable radios in use by the departments. This partial replacement further necessitates the need to purchase like equipment for both maintenance and operations. The portable radios that are currently in use by both departments (Motorola) have proven extremely reliable, with the availability of maintenance from the vendor when required.”

Ostrander said the fire department has also requested new radios.

“The fire department still needs some radios,” Ostrander said. “There have been requests for radio purchases from the fire department, something that administration is considering but not planning on funding those during this budget cycle. There’s certainly a need that’s been identified by the fire department.”