Location of new police, fire dispatch changed

CRESTVIEW — Dispatch services for Crestview police and fire are still consolidating into one location, but that location has changed.

A decision to consolidate the police and fire dispatch services into one location began in 2018 after approval by the city council.

“Under (fire chief) Mr. Holland and (police chief) Mr. Grant, they recognized the lack of efficiency of having them work in separate buildings,” said city manager Tim Bolduc.

During the city council meeting on Monday, Bolduc brought a request to have the mutual dispatch center be located at City Hall.

Originally, the plan was to renovate the old records room at the police department into a new dispatch room. Renovations had already begun on the room, but when Bolduc started his position he began an assessment of the structure.

“We’re constantly assessing what we do,” Bolduc said. “The more we looked into this move over to the police department, I began to ask some questions: what are we going to do in the event of a storm, how do we continue to provide the service, how’s the organizational structure going to work and all those kind of things.”

Bolduc had one of the city’s consultants evaluate the space at the police department.

“We took a look to see if that facility was adequate enough to provide for safety of dispatchers in the event of storm,” Bolduc said. “The report definitely says that is not. At that point we began to look at some alternative options.”

Bolduc came up with two possible options: Fire Station 3 and a storage space at city hall. The storage space seemed like the better option.

“We spoke with the engineer at the same time they were looking at Warrior’s Hall and discussed the opportunity to use the storage facility to maybe convert that to a dispatch space,” Bolduc said. “When we really got to look at it, it really started to make sense because it provides more space. It’s going to be much safer for them.”

Safety was not Bolduc’s only concern. He also wanted to make sure the two departments worked together efficiently.

“In the move before, you were going to have police dispatchers and fire dispatchers sitting across the room looking at each other with different supervisors and different schedules,” Bolduc said. “By the time this project is completed, it’s going to be a true consolidation. We’re going to have a dispatch division that will all be supervised by one central point. They will be subject to the same schedule. They will know exactly what’s required and have the same training.”

After hearing Bolduc’s reasoning, the city council approved the $75,000 project. Funds for the project will come from the fund balance cash reserves and the fire station fund balance.

Renovations of the space will include: completing the scanning of all records, removing all shelving and the second floor, installing concrete blocks in the openings that once served as the rollup doors and a new electrical system.

As for the room at the police department, Mayor J.B. Whitten said the city will “find a functional use for the room.”

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Location of new police, fire dispatch changed