Montgomery County’s Cress Hill Tower Replacement Estimated at $350,000

Article Summary: National Weather Service engineers were not pleased with the condition of the Cress Hill Tower and estimated a cost of $350,000 to $400,000 to replace it, EMA/EPA/911 Director Dan Hough told the Montgomery County Board’s Coordinating Committee on July 30. Board Chairman Doug Donaldson asked Hough to research grants and asked County Board Administration to place the item on the Finance & Budget Committee’s agenda.

Cress Hill Tower Key Points:

Replacement cost was estimated at $350,000 to $400,000, according to Hough’s report of the National Weather Service engineers’ assessment.

Donaldson asked Hough to research grants and directed that the item go onto the Finance & Budget Committee agenda. No motion or vote appears in the minutes.

The item surfaces as the county prepares its FY2027 budget, with budget hearings set for Aug. 18-19 per the same minutes.

The minutes do not say what the tower does, where it is, who owns it, or why National Weather Service engineers assessed it.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY — A county tower is in poor enough condition that National Weather Service engineers put the cost of replacing it at $350,000 to $400,000, the Montgomery County Board’s Coordinating Committee was told Thursday, July 30, 2026 — a figure that lands on the county’s books as it prepares next year’s budget, with no funding source identified in the record.

EMA/EPA/911 Director Dan Hough delivered the report under the committee’s EMA/EPA Report item. According to the minutes, Hough reported that National Weather Service engineers were not pleased with the condition of the Cress Hill Tower, and that they estimated a cost of $350,000 to $400,000 to replace it. That characterization is the record’s; the minutes do not quote Hough or the engineers directly, and they do not describe the specific deficiencies the engineers identified.

Board Chairman Doug Donaldson responded with two directives, both recorded in the minutes. He asked Hough to research grants, and he asked County Board Administration to place the item on the Finance & Budget Committee agenda.

No motion was made and no vote was taken. As a committee of the county board, the Coordinating Committee’s actions are recommendations rather than enactments in any case; here, the record shows a report received and referred, with no money committed and no action recommended to the full board.

What the Record Does Not Say

The minutes leave most of the practical questions open. They do not state where the Cress Hill Tower is, what function it serves, who owns or operates it, or whether Montgomery County would be the party responsible for paying to replace it. They do not explain why National Weather Service engineers were assessing the structure, what standard they measured it against, or whether the estimate is a formal engineering figure or a verbal range. No proposal, inspection report or cost estimate accompanies the minutes.

The tower has appeared in the county’s record before. At the Coordinating Committee’s June 25, 2026, meeting, Information Systems Director Curt Watkins reported that his department was finishing building work at Cress Hill Tower. The July 30 minutes do not reference that earlier report, and nothing in the record establishes the relationship between the two items.

Timing Against the FY2027 Budget

The referral puts the tower in front of the Finance & Budget Committee at the busiest point in the county’s budget year. The same July 30 minutes record that the Finance & Budget Committee will prepare for budget hearings set for Aug. 18-19, and that its docket also includes capital improvement and coal fund reports, Fund 375 purchases, an FY2027 tax levy discussion of whether Truth in Taxation hearings will be required, and consideration of the FY2025 audit.

Hough’s report to the committee also noted that he has been working on the FY2027 budget and that volunteers have been in the field working on the commodity flow study.

Donaldson’s request that Hough research grants is the only funding avenue named anywhere in the record. The minutes identify no grant program, no application deadline and no county fund as a potential source.

Five of the committee’s six members were present for the 8:30 a.m. meeting in the County Board Room of the Historic Courthouse in Hillsboro: Connie Beck, Mark Hughes, Ethan Murzynski, Dr. Patty Whitworth and Donaldson. Chad Ruppert was absent. Public comments were recorded as none. The meeting adjourned at 9:26 a.m.