Wasilla City Council approves upgrade to 911 system

Callers to 911 in the Mat-Su Borough will soon see enhanced services and improved technologies thanks to a new contract that was approved during the July 28 regular Wasilla City Council meeting.

Council unanimously passed an ordinance to replace the current 911 telephone system used by MATCOM Dispatch.

The current system contract is set to expire this year, allowing for MATCOM to seek new bids, and they negotiated the contract to Motorola Solutions for the VESTA 911 call-handling system.

“It offers us a lot of new technologies that we don’t have out there now,” said Lori Criqui, Communications Manager for MATCOM, during the public hearing for the new system.

Among the new technologies will be a text-to 911 feature, language translation, and video links. Services also include enhanced situational intelligence through real-time text transcription, location intelligence on one map, public photo and video submissions, and access to supplementary lifesaving data.

“It can be very critical and important, especially when they’re (callers) in areas where we need to know if we can land a helicopter, bring an airplane in, what do we need to do to get additional resources to people.”

Criqui said that the outgoing system has presented “nothing but difficulties” as she has tried to stand up Text-to-911, which she says should have been an easy task, but a year and a half later, it was still not available.

“It’s simple SMS technology, it shouldn’t be that hard. We constantly get put on the backburner.”

She says with the new system, Motorola, there will be local support and she told the council that she has been assured that they will be taken care of through improved customer support.

“It’s very easy and friendly to use, easy to train on. It’s going to be something great for the staff and for the citizens as well.”

“Bringing this forward, I think, is an outstanding idea,” said Council member Stu Graham.

Funding for this system upgrade will be provided on a reimbursement basis from the Enhanced 911 Surcharge Fund Balance, as authorized by the Borough Assembly.