“Combined Dispatch” is a term that both the City of Washington and Daviess County officials have been discussing, off-and-on, for several years. What it means is combining both the City and County 9-1-1 emergency dispatch centers. At Monday’s Washington City Council Meeting, the Council agreed to split the fee for a cost analysis of merging the two Dispatch Centers.
The issue pushing the merger is the fact that all 9-1-1 calls made from cell phones go to the county center. If the call is made by a Washington resident, the call must be transferred to the Washington 9-1-1 center before first responders are sent out. This means the caller must repeat the emergency information a second time. In life and death emergencies when seconds and minutes are important, the transfer delays response times. City Councilman Alan Brown has been leading the City’s negotiations says negotiators need to see cost projections before firm decisions can be made. Washington Mayor Joe Wellman comments…
The city council agreed to pay $12,500 which is half the cost toward a study of a Combined Dispatch Center. The vote was contingent on the Daviess County Council also agreeing to pay half the cost.
Also at last night’s city meetings…the council introduced ordinances accepting new extensions of Tower Drive and S.W. Fifth Street as city streets. The Council also approved an ordinance transferring money from the LOIT fund to:pay the remaining bills from the 15th Street Bridge project. Any money left in the account will be used for paving.
Following the Council meeting Board of Works and Safety approved the appointment of WPD officer Case Cummings as 2nd shift sergeant, Rick Newton as the City Transit Driver, and Jeff Smith as Street Department storeroom clerk. The Board also approved the write off of $33,000 in uncollected utility bills. Utility manager Anita Ash told the Board this is the lowest amount of uncollected bills in the last 5 years. The total is approximately 1% of the City Utilities yearly billing.
Also Monday night, Mayor Wellman announced that INDOT had informed him that State Road 257 will be repaved between Old 50 in Washington to the By-Pass sometime this year. The Mayor said INDOT had not given a definite time frame for the paving project.