Public input sought for 911 service management
Karen Peterson
Computer screens light up the dispatch work space and provide map information about callers’ locations as well as touchscreen computers that monitor incoming calls.
Karen Peterson
Staycha Hanson, a 911 dispatcher, is part of the team that sometimes receives about 300 calls per day.
Karen Peterson
Anna Wright has worked in dispatch for 23 years and remembers the days when she wrote incoming call information down on paper rather than use a computer.
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson
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LAKE COUNTY – A big question is being asked around the county: should the 911 emergency service separate from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office?
In Lake County, the sheriff is tasked with making the final decision on policy regarding the system that dispatches emergency responders from many agencies including ambulance services, fire departments, and law enforcement.
“If it weren’t for dispatch, we wouldn’t have public safety,” said Lake County Commissioner Bill Barron. “It’s the most critical aspect of public safety. We are looking at how the public wants it managed.”
Barron emphasized that the proposal has nothing to do with the job performance of the sheriff.
“This isn’t against the current sheriff,” he said. “These issues were brought up when I was sheriff, but it didn’t get done. We thought it was time to address them, again.”
Commissioner Barron is asking the public, town council members and emergency responders how they would like the emergency system managed. It could go one of three ways. The system could be a stand-alone agency, it could be put under the direction of the Office of Emergency Management or it could stay under the direction of the sheriff’s office.
Barron said that a 911 committee comprised of board members would be given the responsibility of making policy decisions if the service was separated as a stand-alone agency or if it was put under the guidance of the OEM. The OEM currently takes care of disaster planning by coordinating different agencies and resources.
Sheriff Don Bell said that he has to respectively disagree with the proposal to separate the service based on his job description.
“I was elected to regulate that asset,” he said, explaining that he doesn’t think it is his place to change something he was elected by the public to monitor.
Commissioner Barron said that the reason for the separation proposal came about with the need to reorganize a 911 committee that he said is currently not active. The public is charged a fee for 911 services, so members of the public by law need to be involved, he explained, and a new committee might be interested in more responsibility. Barron is in the process of reorganizing the committee.
Sheriff Bell said once the committee is reorganized he is willing to work with them and take their suggestions into consideration. He said the county currently has a small group that occasionally meets to give him suggestions.
Commissioner Barron hopes to get a new committee established with representatives from each emergency department, one county commissioner, one OEM representative and two members of the public.
He said once the committee is established the county commissioners will vote based on public input whether to make the 911 service a stand-alone entity, to leave it under the direction of the sheriff’s office or to move management under the supervision of the Lake County Office of Emergency Management.
“OEM has no allegiance to any agency, so it’s a good fit,” Barron said. “Twenty years ago, the sheriff’s office was a natural fit, but that has changed. We want to have it under one agency to give everyone an equal voice.”
Stephen Stanley, Lake County OEM coordinator, said that it would be possible to move the emergency service under the direction of the OEM. He said that other counties have successfully managed the 911 service using OEM management.
Commissioner Barron supports putting the 911 service under OEM management with the direction of a 911 committee. He said that many people don’t want to be involved with the committee unless they can make policy decisions.
Barron said he plans to hold several meetings to get public opinion on the matter in the first part of 2016. The meetings are not yet scheduled.
“I was hoping to have a meeting in January,” he said. “It’s our responsibility to listen to the public, and we want to see what the public supports.”
In the past, the 911 service was moved to the Lake County Courthouse under the direction of the sheriff’s office in an effort to pool the resources of the different agencies to help fund the service.
The current budget for 2015 was at about $827,000. Partial funding for the service comes from phone charges at about $1 per month on landlines and cell phones. The bulk of the funding comes from taxes. Barron explained that Polson puts in $30,000, Ronan adds $20,000 and St. Ignatius supplies an office space estimated at $2,500 for meetings and paperwork at the south end of the county.
This year, dispatch received about 40,000 calls, which is about 300 calls a day. Anna Wright, 911 dispatcher, said that some of those calls pertain to the same incident. She has worked in dispatch for the past 23 years.
“I started out in Ronan with a yellow tablet and a pen,” she said of her first years in dispatch. “Now, calls come in and we type in the information.”
The system also includes touchscreen computers to monitor incoming calls, and a map that pops up on another screen with the caller’s location.
Wright could see the system change again if the public approves the separation from the sheriff’s office, although this time the only big change would be in management.
