Troopers sign dispatch deal with Wasilla

WASILLA -- As of July 1, the new, state-of-the-art police dispatch center in Wasilla begins servicing all Department of Public Safety dispatch services for the Mat-Su Valley, Glennallen, Talkeetna and Anchorage. Department of Public Safety Commissioner Bill Tandeske and Wasilla Mayor Diane Keller signed a contract Monday afternoon that formally sealed the agreement.

The dispatch center, which has served the Wasilla Police Department since January 2004, will provide dispatch service for the Alaska State Troopers. "This is a cost savings for the state as well as for the city of Wasilla," Tandeske said, "and in times of challenging budgets, we have to find ways to give our constituents the most for their dollars."

Wasilla Police Department's was the third dispatch center providing service in the Mat-Su Valley. Palmer has long had a dispatch center in Palmer, and the DPS dispatch operations were housed on Fort Richardson dispatch center, which will close when troopers begin sharing the center in Wasilla.

"This is an excellent example of combining operations that are mutually beneficial to both agencies," Tandeske said. "Both Wasilla PD and the Department of Public Safety will realize annual operational cost savings while still getting the job done. Our constituents in the Mat-Su will continue to receive excellent professional service from a center located in their area, staffed by dispatchers who live in their area."

Wasilla Police Chief Don Savage agreed and praised the new center as a model for where Alaska is heading, statewide.

"We are going to get more and more into sharing equipment," Savage said. "There are a lot of unknowns in the transition process, and the challenge is getting all the communications switched over to the new center," Savage said. "The troopers are working on switching over their communications, and we are hiring the new employees.

Eight new dispatchers will be added to the Wasilla dispatch center, along with a new manager for the center.

"It will be interesting to see how it all works out," said Palmer Police Chief George Boatwright. "The primary purpose for all this is to provide the public with the best possible service, and sometimes that means changing the way we do things."

Boatwright added that he thinks some centralization is good, but too much could cause problems.

"If you have a couple facilities, they can back each other up if something happens to the other dispatch," he said, "and that has happened a few times in the last six months with the AST center."

All emergency 911 calls for Wasilla will continue to first go to Palmer Dispatch for screening, before being transferred over to Wasilla. Savage added that the non-emergency phone numbers for the troopers are unaffected by the new agreement, which is set to last for five years with additional renewal clauses.

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.