CHESAPEAKE — Getting caught speeding through Chesapeake will cost motorists a dollar more after the village council voted to raise the fee on its traffic tickets.

That decision was made at its Monday council meeting in order to come up with extra money to fund a move to change its radio system to the Multi-Agency Radio Communications System or MARCS.

The Federal Communications Commission has mandated that public safety radio systems must change either to MARCS or narrow banding by 2013.

“You can stay on your current radios and tweak it to narrow band,” Sheriff Jeff Lawless said. “But with the MARCS system where you can communicate around the state like on the telephone, the MARCS system is such a vital tool, rather than people switching to narrow band.”

Right now the sheriff’s office is reviewing which method to adopt for its operation.

“It is the individual agencies’ choice,” Lawless said. “We have a committee on which way to go, what the cost and feasibility is. We haven’t moved yet.”

Part of joining with MARCS is a fee of $20 per month per radio.

“You don’t have to go to MARCS,” Lawless said. “But if the sheriff switches to one or the other, if the villages want us to dispatch for them, they would have to switch. Right now we have the capability of dispatching both ways.”

Chesapeake’s radio fee for MARCS would be $40 a month for the two radios it needs. The county’s Emergency Management Agency will provide the village with the radios

“There would be expenses for repairs,” Gilpin said. “We needed to have a fund to cover that cost.”