Englewood will continue to have its own dispatch center, but the county center will remain a back up for the city.
Englewood Police Chief Mark Brownfield and Fire Chief Anthony Terrace said the dispatch update, which will include phone and records management systems, would solve multiple issues they’re experiencing.
“We were looking for a solution that gives us the modern technology of a new software package and we would like to deal with the issue of keeping track of what’s going on in the other jurisdictions,” Brownfield said.
The Premier One computer aid dispatch system by Motorola would also cut cost in half for the city whereas having a stand-alone center would be around $600,000. It would also allow them to better serve communities by removing blind spots. “With their program and our computers, we can actually see what everybody’s doing in their dispatch center,” he said.
Earlier this year, Englewood, Union and Clayton started a Fire and Emergency Services collaboration in which Englewood and Union fire departments are dispatched by Englewood and Clayton is dispatched by the county.
There are areas in Englewood covered by Clayton and there are areas of Clayton that are covered by Englewood. This caused problems having services from two centers creating an extra step to dispatching calls, according to Brownfield
“It kind of sets up those scenarios with possible delays in getting that call out because we have to contact the county, or the county has to contact us and then were trying to keep track of it in two different systems,” Brownfield said.
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