Council, commission hold joint meeting

"I'd like to have an opportunity to just visit and learn tonight and get better acquainted. This is a chance for us to gain some knowledge and information and see what's going on," Mike Hutchens, Nevada mayor, said Tuesday night to open a joint work session of the Nevada City Council and the Vernon County Commission in the city council chambers.

"I appreciate the opportunity to get together and hope to have many more. Our most pressing thing is constructing the jail and the joint dispatch center," Bonnie McCord, Vernon County Presiding Commissioner, said.

This is a concept that has been talked about for years by the city and county, Gary Herstein, Nevada Public Safety Director, said

"I think it was in the city's master plan in the 80s," Herstein said.

He said that the current plan started during a meeting after the voters approved the tax to build the new jail, and there have been a number of meetings during the last 18 months to discuss combining the city and county dispatch centers.

"There is a lot of duplication of services," Vernon County Sheriff Ron Peckman said.

One example of this is the MULES system, which is a statewide communications network to link law enforcement agencies to state and federal databases.

"We both pay for MULES services," Peckman said.

By combining dispatch centers he said that would no longer be necessary.

The Nevada Police Department and the Vernon County Sheriffs Office already share the same local database, and by having a joint dispatch center both departments will be aware of what the other is doing, without making a telephone or radio call.

Herstein said that this will be a real advantage during the spring and summer storm season. Currently, he said, that each department operates separately and does not know what the other is doing. With a joint dispatch center, that will not be a problem.

Right now, the Vernon County Ambulance District talks to both the police and sheriff's dispatchers when they are on a call, Peckman said; a joint center would eliminate that and save time.

Harlan Moore, interim city manager, said that the joint center will be a real advantage if there is a disaster and the Emergency Operations Center, which will be located in the jail, is activated, since the EOC and the dispatchers need to work together.

Moore, who retired from the Denver County, Colo., Sheriff's Department, said they had a joint dispatch center there that handled the sheriffs office, as well as, several police departments. Their dispatch center was controlled by an independent board of directors, with representatives from each department and run by a dispatch center coordinator.

He said that you do not often see law enforcement agencies work as well together as the Nevada Police Department and the Vernon County Sheriff's Office.

"It's a great marriage to me," Moore said.

He said that having two dispatchers on duty will provide automatic relief for the dispatchers, as well as increasing the safety of the officers and there will be no delays from telephone calls between departments.

The combined dispatch center will be large enough to have up to 10 dispatchers on duty at one time, which will allow for future expansion.

"Police departments have teamed together across the country to share costs. Why pay multiple costs," Moore said.

Herstein said that they are looking at a similar operation here, with the dispatch center controlled by a board of directors who hires a 911 coordinator to run the center independently of the participating agencies.

Here in Vernon County, the center will likely handle the dispatch duties for the Nevada Police Department, Vernon County Sheriff's Office and the volunteer fire departments, as well as the Vernon County Ambulance District, which does not do its own dispatching.

Bonnie McCord said they are planning for each department, which is tax supported to pay a percentage of the operation cost, based on usage.

"Since the volunteer fire departments are not tax support I would have a hard time charging them for using the dispatch center," McCord said.

"They would be county calls," Neal Gerster, northern commissioner said.

Herstein said that based on current usage, if the city and county use the center the city would have 60 percent of the usage and the county, 40 percent. If the Ambulance District is included, that would change to 50 percent, city, 40 percent county and 10 percent ambulance.

Peckman said that they have received permission to erect a 160 foot antenna tower at the jail site, which will be taller than the city's tower.

The higher tower will help to eliminate the places in the county where there is no reliable radio communications between units in the field and the dispatcher.

With the room to expand the dispatch center, there is the possibility for the center to provide dispatch services for some of the surrounding counties that do not currently have E-911 service.

McCord said that Hickory County has inquired about that possibility and Bates and Cedar counties do not currently have E-911 services.

At present, Vernon County does not have a 911 system that will give the dispatcher a location of a calls origin and will not until the new center is finished.

Peckman said that everyone thinks the county has one, but they do not.

Herstein said that Nevada has completed phase one of their E-911 system, which is for landline telephones. Phase two is for cell phones.

"We're not even half way there," he said.

Adding cell phones to the E-911 system requires more money and the tax on landlines is not enough to cover that expense.

"We are really behind in Vernon County as far as 911 is concerned," Herstein said.

The key to adding cell phones is for the state to enact a law that will put a tax on cell phones, like the one on landline phones to pay for E-911 services.

"We need help convincing the state representatives to pass a law enabling a users fee on cell phones to pay for E-911. Currently there is fee on landline only," Herstein said.

Vernon County Southern Commissioner Kennon Shaw said that they need to educate the public about the need for the user fee.

In response to a question from Hutchens, McCord said that they are looking into converting the current Sheriffs Office into office space, possibly to house the Public Defenders office for the four counties in this circuit.

"We're looking at the cost to rehab it for office space," McCord said.