Building a better dispatch

WASILLA -- When the city of Wasilla announced last week that it was replacing police chief Charlie Fannon and creating a new job for him as coordinator of a regional dispatch center, it was the first chapter of a story that could affect how public safety works in every corner of the Mat-Su Borough.

Fannon believes the new dispatch center -- which is awaiting a $1.6-million federal grant -- will be revolutionary and will benefit not just the Wasilla Police Department, but the Palmer police, the borough's fire departments and ambulance service, the Alaska State Troopers, and Houston's city fire department. That is, if Fannon and the other public safety officials can stay the course through what might turn out to be treacherous political waters.

Local public safety workers seem to have at least gotten their feet wet. A panel of public safety workers, called the Enhanced 911 (E-911) Advisory Board, meets regularly and is composed of people from several area public safety agencies. On Tuesday morning, the panel discussed Wasilla's proposal.

In an interview with the Frontiersman, Fannon summed up his perspective of the upcoming process and the panel's reaction to the grant.

"This isn't going to be an instant gratification type of thing. There is going to be some pain involved," Fannon said. Fannon's position is that a new upgraded dispatch center will benefit everyone involved. In short, the ex-chief thinks it's a job worth doing.

"I don't look forward to the political part that's going to be involved -- but I do look forward to the public service part of the job," he said.

There is currently a regional dispatch center of sorts that has been operating for decades at the Palmer police department. Last year the center had operating costs of around $800,000, according to Palmer Police Chief Russ Boatright.

Wasilla police, the borough's fire and ambulance service, and the city of Houston all pay for services from Palmer dispatch. The Alaska State Troopers also receive some assistance from Palmer dispatch, but it is limited, and Valley-based troopers are dispatched from a center located at Fort Richardson.

Fannon wants to change that. He believes law enforcement and emergency response would both work better if area troopers were dispatched from the same center as the local police departments.

"We desperately need to have the state troopers out here be dispatched from out here," Fannon said. "We work together constantly. Not a shift goes by when we don't back each other up."

Fannon knows the nuts and bolts of setting the stage for the project won't be easy -- interagency and cross-government meetings will have to be held. A recent press release said Wasilla's administration has been targeting the dispatch needs "for years" and requested the federal funds in 2000.

Fannon said he was confident the grant money would come through within a couple of weeks.

At a ribbon-cutting at Wasilla's new police building in October 2000, Fannon told the Frontiersman he had been talking up a regional dispatch center with other public safety officials.

Still, Boatright said the plan took him by surprise.

"To be frank, we have had very little insight into what Wasilla is doing up until now," Boatright said, "We have received very little information. I believe that we are going to see a change in that."

That doesn't mean Boatright isn't willing to cooperate. He said he plans to make sure that the needs of the Palmer police are met in the future, and plans to be involved in the upcoming planning process.

"I was probably the hottest one [at Tuesday's meeting]. I don't like to be kept in the dark," Boatright said. "That is not to say I'm not going to go along with this, but I'm going to approach it with a degree of caution. I want to make sure that the city of Palmer has its needs addressed -- and I don't mean the police department or the city government, but the people of Palmer."

Fannon said details of the project will be hammered out by an interagency committee whose first task will be to invite potential partners into the project. That list could include the public safety arms of Alaska State Parks, the Division of Forestry, and the Native village of Chickaloon, in addition to the partners who currently pay for Palmer dispatch center services.

Both Fannon and Boatright have experience in emergency dispatch. Fannon said he oversaw the installation of a new dispatch center when he served as police chief in Haines. The Haines system was much smaller than the proposed Mat-Su regional dispatch. It cost about $100,000, according to

Fannon.

Boatright's experience in dispatch came in the 1970s when he worked as a dispatcher for three years with the Anchorage Police Department. That's partly why he is concerned about regionalization and interagency dispatch. Boatright said dispatch for Anchorage police and fire departments had been joined, but was split into different units because the agencies had different needs.

"The more people you bring in, the more frightened I become," Boatright said. "Our needs are not the same and you can't make them the same. When you try and fulfill all of those needs, somebody is going to end up on the short end of the stick."