Amanda Carey the Interim manager for the city of Toledo at the last city council meeting reported that the city has reached critical staffing levels in the Toledo dispatch center and asked the council to consider instead merging with the Willamette Valley Communication Center or WVCC. They have only 3 dispatchers on staff at this point and have reached out to Oregon Emergency Management for help with consolidation.
WVCC is currently covering areas surrounding Toledo in Lincoln County including working with Newport Police and the Sheriff’s office and dispatch for the county fire departments. Some of the benefits brought up for consideration of consolidation included that they will be on the same emergency channel as other agencies, they will be able to self initiate on a call and emergency response time will be greatly improved. She added there will be benefits for the community as well, including utilizing the text to 911, and rapid location identification. There would be advisory representatives on the WVCC board from Toledo fire and Toledo police. Carey intends to bring the contract to the council in January as she said she wants to get the contract signed and get moving with the transition.
Toledo Mayor Rod Cross voiced some concern with his experience with WVCC. “They don’t know Lincoln County at all and I have been down this road personally having called and said we are at Toledo High School and the response has been Where?” He asked what WVCC was going to do to learn the area and it’s landmarks and become acclimated with the area. “People don’t always have an address or milemarker number, they just know where they are.” He asked if they were going to be able to do GPS pinging.
Toledo Dispatcher supervisor Katie Pimentel as able to address some concerns. She said they have mapping information from cell phones. She said she has offered if this goes through to help map the area. She said the three dispatchers that they have can’t keep up with the pace, she said in the past two months she has been averaging over 100 hours of overtime a month. Citizens questioned if now was the best time to have this discussion considering the confusion that is going on with the fire department right now, and asked if the rural fire department in Eddyville had been brought into this discussion.
City Councilor Tracy Mix responded by saying “we have no choice, we either outsource it or no one gets their 911 calls answered at all.” Mayor Cross pointed out that staffing is a big problem throughout the state with dispatch centers, and Toledo doesn’t have the funding to offer stay incentives like bigger cities do. Barry Bruster, former Lincoln County Sheriff’s Deputy said when the county transitioned to WVCC the dispatchers came out and did ride alongs and got to know the area and the lingo. Staff is looking to answer some of council and citizens concerns and answer questions and bring this issue back to the council this month for consideration.
I have personal experience when a visitor called for medical assistance at the Aquarium and WVCC sent the response to the Newport Rec Center instead. Fire personnel tell stories of receiving calls on a street in the wrong town. Mistakes like these will eventually kill someone. Good luck