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Warren, Trumbull team up for wireless 911
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Ernie Cook, Trumbull County 911 director.
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
A lawsuit caused a two-year delay, but Trumbull County and the Warren Police Department are ready to buy equipment to implement 911 service that can better handle wireless calls.
“It’s time to move forward. It’s time to move into the 21st century,” Ernie Cook, Trumbull County 911 director, said Tuesday after a meeting of Trumbull County commissioners.
Cook was on hand to discuss the “Letter of Intent to Proceed” from the city of Warren to Cook that states the city’s and county’s intent to operate 911 and computer-aided dispatching systems from “like platforms.”
Cook said the city and county will work off of “tandem” computer systems, meaning they will be nearly identical. They will allow both agencies to access each other’s files and handle 911 calls and dispatching operations interchangeably — in support of each other and in place of the other if one or the other goes down.
The goal of upgrading to the next level of wireless 911 call-taking is to give dispatchers the ability to identify the location of wireless 911 calls to within feet rather than within the proximity of a cell tower, Cook said.
That way, if a 911 caller doesn’t know where he or she is or is unable to talk, dispatchers will be able to send help anyway.
Another benefit will be that county deputies will have access to Warren police reports from their cruisers, and Warren officers will have access to county jail records and sheriff police reports from their cruisers.
Cook said having identical systems in place in Warren and the county will enable the two agencies to use the manpower at both call-answering locations during critical incidents where hundreds of 911 calls might be made simultaneously.
Wireless 911 calls continue to be a bigger and bigger issue, Cook said, because 72 percent of 911 calls now come from wireless phones.
Cook expects to purchase the new computer-aided dispatching and records management equipment in the coming months and have it operating by fall.
The cost will be about $1 million to provide the equipment to the county 911 dispatch center in Howland and the Warren Police Department on South Street.
The fund created to collect wireless 911 surcharge fees charged to cellphone users contains close to $2 million, Cook said.
Under the plan approved by a county 911 board in late 2008, the county and Warren Police Department will be the primary call answering points. Niles will be a backup, and the county and Warren will relay wireless 911 calls to the other public-safety answering points n Girard, Hubbard, Newton Falls, Lordstown and Liberty.
Cook said he’s still talking with Niles and other PSAPs about upgrades to their dispatching equipment.
Niles Police Chief Bruce Simeone said Niles will continue to receive its wireless 911 calls directly from a caller under the plan and has the equipment to handle that.
The only question now is whether Niles will receive money to upgrade its equipment in the future.
Judge John M. Stuard of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court ruled in October that the wireless 911 plan approved in 2008 was legal. The cities of Girard, Hubbard, Newton Falls, and Niles, Village of Lordstown and Liberty Township, which filed the suit to stop the plan, chose not to appeal the ruling, Cook said.
“It’s going to give everyone so much more safety and redundancy,” Cook said of the enhanced 911 capabilities. “It’s a major step. Up to this point, it’s been a little like herding cats.”