WRENTHAM - Voters likely will be asked to come up with more money at the April 28 annual town meeting to resolve the long-standing public safety communications problems in the hilly west end.

Residents at the fall town meeting voted overwhelmingly to appropriate $60,000, but bids are expected to range from $80,000 to $100,000 for a 100-foot pole and antenna to be put up near the town's water tank off Rhodes Drive.

"It seems clearly $60,000 is not sufficient," public safety communications review committee Chairman Walter Mahla told selectmen Tuesday night. "I am concerned they are going to be quite high," he said of the project's final cost

And there may be zoning problems with the proposal. An application is pending before the planning board.

"If it is not zoned right, you need to find a place. It is an embarrassment not to have two-way radio communication for police and fire," committee member Michael Clemmey said. Selectmen Chairwoman Mary Dunn expressed dismay that the ongoing problem continues to spur complications.

"A lot of questions, we haven't gotten answers to. We have gotten conflicting answers," Dunn said. "What is it we need?"

"This is a replay of last year. People didn't have a firm understanding what the money would be all for," said new Selectman Bob Cohen, who lives in the west end. "I want to know people know what they are buying."

Cohen suggested taking another look at using the Morse land at The Big Apple where the town's antennas had been on a barn for several years. Morse in recent years erected the town's old public safety communications tower there and Cohen mentioned using that.

However, there are questions whether that tower is legal, if the town can put its antennas on it, and if those antennas are now on it - the latter which Dunn said was not supposed to happen.

"This is another reason we need it on town-owned land," Dunn said.

Mahla agreed the town shouldn't rely on such equipment on private land.