PUCO approves Trumbull 911 plan

By Ed Runyan

The Newton Falls mayor says county officials have blocked a 911 meeting he hoped to organize.

WARREN — The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has approved the Trumbull County 911 plan, meaning the commission will soon forward about $1.5 million in cell-phone surcharges it has been holding for the county.

But Pat Layshock, mayor of Newton Falls, says the communities opposed to the plan are moving forward — possibly this week — with a lawsuit aimed at voiding the plan.

Layshock says he also tried to organize a meeting of the 911 Planning Committee, which approved the plan, for later this week or early next week, but county officials have blocked the meeting.

Layshock says he felt that a meeting was warranted because the plan contained errors that need to be corrected.

For instance, it misidentified which 911 center would be taking wireless 911 calls for the city of Niles, village of McDonald and Weathersfield Township.

Commissioner Paul Heltzel said it is true the plan contains errors, but they can be corrected any time.

Heltzel said he suspects Layshock has other motives for wanting a new meeting, and he doesn’t believe it would be wise to have a public meeting with individuals threatening to sue.

Layshock said he plans to have a 911 Planning Committee meeting sometime next week regardless of county participation.

The planning committee consists of Layshock; Ralph Infante, mayor of Niles; Dan Polivka, county commissioner; Michael O’Brien, mayor of Warren; and Donald Barzak, Johnston Township trustee.

Layshock and Infante voted against the plan Nov. 25. Polivka, O’Brien and Barzak voted for it.

After the vote, officials from Newton Falls, Niles, Girard, Hubbard, Lordstown and Liberty Township met with an attorney to map out their legal options.

PUCO said it will release the $1.5 million so the county can upgrade its 911 services countywide to better pinpoint the origin of wireless 911 calls.

With the newest upgrades — called Phase 2 — call centers will be able to identify the caller’s location by using the latitude/longitude of the caller’s location. Currently, wireless 911 calls can only be identified by a broader geographical area.

Moving forward with the wireless 911 funding makes Trumbull County the 87th county out of 88 in Ohio to receive its share of the Phase 2 funding.

The money comes from the 32 cents per month paid by wireless phone users.

The Trumbull County plan calls for the county 911 dispatching center in Howland to take over all emergency calls for Liberty Township, the village of Lordstown, and the cities of Newton Falls, Girard and Hubbard.

The plan says a county 911 dispatcher will enter all information from 911 calls into the system and transfer the information to the jurisdiction from which the call originated.

Liberty, Girard, Hubbard, Newton Falls and Lordstown would still answer all their own nonemergency calls.

Niles and Warren will be used as backup answering systems to the county.

Michael Dolhancryk, county 911 director, said the new county answering system can be in place within about nine to 12 months, and he is prepared to move forward to buy the new software and hardware.

runyan@vindy.com