Panel Recommends Centralized Emergency Dispatch Center

By Andrew Gorosko

Following 21 months of work, the town’s Combined Dispatch Committee has submitted to the first selectman its report on a proposal to centralize and modernize town emergency services dispatching facilities.

Currently, police department dispatching is done from a dispatching booth adjacent to the lobby of the police station at 3 Main Street. Dispatching for fire and ambulance calls is now done from a dispatching room about one-half mile to the north in the basement of Edmond Town Hall at 45 Main Street.

First Selectman Herbert Rosenthal this week characterized the committee report as a draft document, which is subject to revision. 

The comprehensive dispatch committee report proposes centralizing all dispatching as a way to streamline town emergency services operations.  The report suggests combining all dispatching in the large room which formerly held the town building department in the lower level of Town Hall South at 3 Main Street. That room is beneath the police station.

 But in the report the committee states questions have been raised about the habitability and the handicapped accessibility of that section of the building, adding that the police plan to recommend an alternate location in the building for the combined dispatching center.

Police Captain Michael Kehoe said Wednesday police are developing an alternate proposal in which the central dispatching center would be located in the room in the police station now used as the records department. Under that plan, the police records department would move into what is now the police dispatching booth, he said.

Capt Kehoe, who served as a member of the dispatch committee, said he hopes to submit the alternate proposal for consideration within the next few weeks.

 In a memorandum to Mr Rosenthal, Kimberly Sharpe, the dispatch committee chairman, writes the committee hopes the first selectman will proceed with plans for the dispatch center as soon as possible, adding that questions concerning funding and labor union agreements remain to be addressed. Representatives from the police, fire and ambulance services, as well as workers from both current dispatching facilities, served on the dispatch committee.

In its report, the committee states, “It appears that we are ready to combine [dispatching facilities] not only because it is a better way of dispatching, as many of our surrounding towns have proved, but also because it is a long-term, cost-effective choice.”

Although initial spending to create a combined facility would be considerable, the facility is projected to have a 20-year lifespan, it adds.

New radio equipment installed at a combined dispatch center would resolve problems stemming from continual repair work on existing equipment, according to the panel.

The committee lists several reasons why a combined dispatch center would improve emergency services operations. Better communications equipment would provide faster emergency response times; better trained personnel would provide better service; a team effort would provide faster response times; and a simplified dispatching process would provide better emergency coverage, according to the panel.

Having all dispatching facilities located in one place would save the time that is now lost in relaying information from one dispatching facility to the other, it adds.

An initial large expense needed to create a combined dispatching center designed to last 20 years makes sense in terms of public safety and public spending, rather than repeated annual expenditures to upgrade and repair existing dispatching facilities, according to the panel. The overall cost to create a combined dispatching center is unclear based on figures included in the committee report. Ms Sharpe could not be reached for comment.

A combined dispatch center would have two dispatchers on duty around the clock. Each of the two dispatch facilities now has one dispatcher on duty around the clock.

The proposal to create a centralized dispatching center would be subject to review by town agencies.