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Panel approves new plan for 911
A change in the Warren mayor’s vote scuttled an earlier plan.
WARREN — County officials have selected a new plan to handle emergency 911 calls, but the plan has made certain members of law enforcement anything but happy.
Representatives of the Trumbull County 911 Planning Committee voted 3-2 on Tuesday to accept a plan put forth by Michael Dolhancryk, the county’s 911 director. Committee members Newton Falls Mayor Patrick Layshock and Niles Mayor Ralph Infante opposed it.
Committee members county Commissioner Daniel Polivka, Johnston Township Trustee Donald Barzak and Warren Mayor Michael O’Brien supported the new plan.
The county was under some pressure to approve a plan and submit it to the state by Dec. 31 in order to use $1.5 million for service upgrades being held in escrow.
Dolhancryk said under the new plan, the $1.5 million will be used primarily to update Warren’s system and Niles’ system as backup answering centers to the county 911 center.
The other communities with their own public safety answering points — PSAPs — will see some upgrades as well as benefit from upgrades installed at the county level, he added.
The upgrades will allow emergency dispatchers to pinpoint where 911 calls made from cellular phones originate.
Dolhancryk said the plan calls for the county 911 service to take over all emergency calls for Liberty Township and the cities of Newton Falls, Lordstown, 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.
Part of the objection stems from disagreement over the way an earlier plan proposed by Niles Police Chief Bruce Simeone was handled. That plan called for each jurisdiction to maintain its own 911 emergency service and use the $1.5 million in escrow to update each system equally across the board.
O’Brien, Layshock and Infante voted in favor of the original plan in July, but O’Brien later changed his vote. Layshock argued that the Warren mayor should be held to his vote and the earlier plan sent to the state.
O’Brien said his decision to change was done in the best interest of the county and had nothing to do with the new plan’s call to upgrade 911 services in his city.
“At no time has any back-door deal been made to me ... or have I ever been approached on these items,” he said.
Simeone said the matter is far from over, however. Those opposed to the new plan, he said, will likely take the matter to court.
jgoodwin@vindy.com