By: Brenna White
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
publisher@thevillagereporter.com
The Williams County Mayors Association convened on November 19, 2025, to discuss dispatching challenges and emergency protocols across the county.
Beginning with a roll call to establish attendance, Don Leu of West Unity, Steve Yagelski of Montpelier, Duane Thiel of Edon, Robert Day of Edgerton, and Eric Jenkins of Blakeslee were present. Commissioners Terry Rummel and Scott Lirot attended the meeting as well.
The group first approved the minutes from its previous meeting held on October 15, 2025. A financial update followed, with no unusual business reported.
The meeting then moved to welcome guest speakers from the Williams County Fire Chiefs: Scott Blue and Allyn Luce.
“So the big thing from the Williams County Fire Chiefs that we have been discussing is the challenges with communication,” began Luce.
He addressed issues of service gaps, specifically in areas such as Nettle Lake, Alvordton, and northern Pioneer. “When we are on a scene, we can accommodate for that. The longer communication (reach) is the challenge for us,” he said.
Luce also shared some issues with interstate communications, as they don’t have the ability to communicate with neighboring Indiana and Michigan states smoothly. “Although MARCS is a multi-agency program, ours stops at the state line,” he explained.
The MARCS system is a Multi-Agency Radio Communication System, which operates a digital radio and data network for public safety officials in Ohio. Departments such as first responder agencies, police, fire, and EMS use the system to communicate with each other during operations and emergencies.
However, while the Williams County firefighters do have their own MARCS system, they do not actively use it due to widespread communication and servicing issues.
“Today, Williams County Fire Departments do not page on the MARCS paging system, because of the poor service. If I was to go into the basement of a house, I wouldn’t get a page because of the pager being out of poor service,” continued Luce. Instead, the county firefighters rely on a VHF paging system.
The firefighters themselves cover the user fee to pay for the VHF system. “The Williams County Fire Association pays for that each year.
It comes from the departments through fundraising, to support the Chief’s Association, which pays for that paging service.”
Luce explained how they have another backup system called “Active 911.” Used as a cellphone app, this service also experiences challenges due to the lack of cellphone service in many areas within the county.
“For lack of a better word,” said Blue, “the argument is who is responsible for (funding) fire paging? Therein lies the problem – we need a backup system. Fire service is part of the 911 Communications Center.
“All of a sudden, financially, it’s being put on the firefighters’ back to pay for something that should be county-wide. Who made the decision to put it on the back of the firefighters?” questioned Mayor Yagelski.
Commissioner Rummel stated that after ongoing financial struggles with the Williams County EMS, many budget cuts, including older paging systems, had to be made several years ago.
“Can we share in the wealth in this? We invested millions of dollars into MARCS, we threw the money into MARCS, and we didn’t ask any departments any money for that – because it’s all Williams County service.
“So we asked everyone to come over to MARCS and make it work. Now, where we failed was that the paging stinks. I’m not sure we realized how bad the paging system actually was until Commissioner Lirot came aboard and started looking into things.
“So if we can make paging work, I think we are looking at how we can continue to grow the MARCS paging side of it and fix that,” he said.
“If MARCS paging worked flawlessly, we wouldn’t care,” admitted Luce. “Where we stand today, Heather Mercer is doing some work with MARCS. We are trying to look to see how we can improve the towers.”
Williams County currently has four service towers within the area, which is considerably less than neighboring counties.
“When you look at it, just trying to put it in perspective, it’s a lot of territory to cover with just four towers. Plus, MARCS towers are directional, so we are just talking about getting things updated,” Luce affirmed.
The discussion then turned into how villages and county officials can appropriately respond to emergency disasters, such as the straight-line wind storm that affected the Montpelier area in March 2025.
Chains of command, Emergency Operation Centers (EOC), and when it is necessary to call a state of emergency were also discussed.
The association mentioned the possibility of hosting a group exercise to be better prepared in the future for natural disasters or emergency accidents.
The Williams County Mayor Association adjourned at 7:37 p.m.