By Ken Carlson
The Modesto Bee
MODESTO, Calif. — Stanislaus County leaders came to a tenuous compromise over a 911 dispatch service upgrade.
Supervisors approved agreements for county agencies including the Sheriff’s Office to connect to a new computer-aided dispatch system at the Stanislaus Regional 911 center, but they also will allow Sheriff Jeff Dirkse to keep developing a separate dispatch system with Oracle Corporation.
Officials are discussing ways for Stanislaus Regional 911 to operate a CentralSquare CAD system for dispatching emergency calls for Modesto police and fire departments, while letting the Sheriff’s Office use the separate Oracle system for patrol deputies, investigations and jail and records management.
At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, ideas were aired including housing both systems at the SR-911 center on Oakdale Road and reorganizing dispatch staff to dedicate some to the Sheriff’s Office system. An original proposal for a joint Sheriff’s Office and Ceres police dispatch center would take longer to reach fruition.
Most supervisors stressed they want the Stanislaus Regional 911 Joint Powers Authority to stay together. Dirkse has proposed that the Sheriff’s Office leave the partnership. “It’s very important to me that the JPA exists,” said Supervisor Mani Grewal, who’s on the JPA governing board.
“I want to keep the conversation going, as far as an alternative dispatch, if that is what the sheriff recommends, but with the understanding the JPA still exists,” Grewal said.
Plans are moving forward for Modesto police and SR-911 to implement the CentralSquare system Sept. 15 . The Board of Supervisors approved agreements and licensing purchases enabling the county Probation Department, the Sheriff’s Office and the county Office of Emergency Services to connect with CentralSquare.
The proposal for a separate Oracle dispatch system for the Sheriff’s Office depends on a “CAD-to-CAD” technology to prevent delayed responses for certain fire calls. Supervisors have expressed concern about a necessary call transfer when the Oracle system would handle fire calls within the Sheriff’s Office contract cities of Riverbank, Patterson, Hughson and Waterford.
According to Dirkse, the CAD-to-CAD function would minimize delays by sharing incident details on the computer screens of emergency units.
Supervisor Vito Chiesa said he wanted to hear more from experts about whether the CAD-to-CAD technology would support acceptable response times.
“Time will tell whether this works or it doesn’t,” Supervisor Terry Withrow said. “If it falls flat on its face, we have the CentralSquare (system) to pick us up.”
Solution to require ‘fence-mending,’ Withrow says
Dirkse has worked with Oracle on a new dispatch system under an agreement of no costs for the county the first five years. Supervisors still want to see solid figures on the county’s costs after the initial five-year period. One of the board actions Tuesday was approving a letter to Dirkse requiring solid cost figures for an alternative dispatch center and a response time analysis including input from the county fire warden, the SR-911 executive director and fire chiefs.
Dirkse said the Sheriff’s Office and other local agencies will have to do some “sausage-making” quickly to put two dispatch systems under one roof by mid-September.
Withrow said the internal controversies over the competing CAD systems require fence-mending to restore relationships.
“I have never gone through something like this,” Withrow said. “There has been damage to relationships as a result of this. If relationships are not good, we don’t get things done.”
Last year, Modesto received a $3.53 million federal grant to pay for a new CAD system as part of a 911 call center project dedicated for the city, but the SR-911 JPA remained intact. The county’s cost for using the CentralSquare system is $274,833 annually, an increase of $149,000 over use of a current system.
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