 What makes for excellence in heart care? It starts with one of the most amazing teams of heart surgeons and cardiologists that I've seen assembled under one roof and the region's leading technology in a new $40 million facility. This is the nationally recognized Heart and Vascular Institute of Eastern Kentucky at Pikeville Medical Center. Tuesday, March 21st, the Pike County Fiscal Court made a motion to implement a $4 monthly 911 fee for all Pike County residents. This fee will help fund dispatch, equipment, and other essentials for 911. This has been something we've been working on for some time. It really needed to be done several years ago, but it's just one thing everybody's trying to keep costs down and do everything, but we recently, you know, with everything else is going up, you know, our dispatching service costs went up and everything, and it got to the point that the dispatching service cost alone was more than what 911 was able to bring in. Prior to the fee being added, around 11,000 residents with landlines were paying a 911 fee. This amendment will eliminate the landline fee and distribute the cost evenly to all Pike County residents. It was a hard decision. It was a hard decision on the 911 board about what to do and how to do it. We visited counties across the state. We called more counties across the state to find out how other counties had tackled the same problem, because it was not just our county. Counties across the entire state of Kentucky have been having this exact same problem. So we talked to a lot of other 911 centers across the state, and this was the way that all of them had actually been able to fix the problem and been able to become self-sufficient again to where they're not depending on the counties. They're not depending on cities and counties and everything to fund them, where they can fund themselves and keep 911. Because 911 is a life safety tool, it does not need to be anything that's political or politicized. It needs to be where things can be done to help take care of the communities. The amendment also stated the 911 fee will adjust with the consumer price index, eliminating the need for an amendment to change the fee in the future. Reporting for Mount Top News, I'm Brianna Robinson.