It’s past time to consolidate

For many years our reporters have heard that it is time to consolidate emergency dispatch services into a single call center. We second that motion.

Currently all 911 calls in the Mat-Su are answered in Palmer. If the caller needs a fire truck, an ambulance, or lives in Palmer, the call stays there.

But if the caller needs police service anywhere in the borough outside of Palmer, the call is transferred to the Mat-Com dispatch center in Wasilla.

Until very recently, the need for consolidation was talked about mainly in the abstract. We heard things like “It would be nice to have just one center,” often as an aside when we were talking about something else.

We heard the arguments then: it’s more efficient to have one center, there’s less room for error, etc.

But we never heard the problem described in such stark terms as we heard last week when a former city of Wasilla dispatcher shared a story about one horrible night when she sent an Alaska State Trooper unawares into a confrontation with an armed suspect.

Though the reasons the warning sign slipped past her were subtle, she’s convinced they wouldn’t have gotten by her if she’d talked to the man who called 911 that night. But she didn’t. A dispatcher in Palmer took that call.

In the current set-up, information passes needlessly through multiple hands before reaching its destination. Callers have to tell their story multiple times to multiple dispatchers. And that wastes time, which is a matter of life and death in the field of emergency response.

This hole in our local safety net means unnecessary risk of injury or death to one of our neighbors. That could also lead to liability issues and legal expenses for the borough and taxpayers.

We know now that consolidation is unlikely to save money. But if it saves lives, we argue, it’s worth any effort or extra expense.

We heard great desire for the change at last week’s meeting of the borough assembly and from members of all three of the Valley’s city councils. Let’s hope that translates into action.

Because, as we’ve said before: it’s past time to consolidate.