June 1, 2006

By Diane Chiddister

Yellow Springs police officers do many things. They arrest drunk drivers, silence barking dogs and comfort elders who hear sounds in the night. They install child safety seats, serve warrants, crack down on drug users and keep an eye on rowdy juveniles. They solve thefts, ticket speeders and assist the emergency squad.

“I feel we’re doing so much, spread so thin,” said Police Chief John Grote. “I’m proud of the work we’re doing.”

Grote spoke last Thursday, May 25, at a community meeting sponsored by the Yellow Springs Men’s Group. The purpose of the meeting, which about 20 people attended, was to provide information about the effects on the community if the Police Department discontinues its dispatching service and joins other Greene County departments in using a single countywide dispatching system.

The discontinuation of the Yellow Springs dispatching service has been included among various cost-cutting proposals that the Village is considering to help address financial challenges.

Grote said that he and Village Manager Eric Swansen are attending planning meetings for a proposed countywide dispatching service. The Greene County Dispatch Center would be under the governance of the Greene County commissioners, who have received a $60,000 grant to study the prospective program, Grote said.

A location for the new system has been picked outside Xenia, he said, but the project still includes many unknowns, including whether it would ultimately help Yellow Springs police provide better service.

“Right now we’re up in the air,” he said of whether the Police Department will join the new system. “We’re in the game, we’re participating, but we haven’t made any decisions.”

While the creation of a countywide dispatching system has been in the discussion stages for some time, Grote said, plans are moving ahead slowly. The planners’ main stumbling block is determining a fair cost for each municipality involved, he said. After the cost questions are settled, Grote said, it will be at least two more years before the county system is up and running.

But it’s not yet clear whether joining the system will save the Village money, the police chief said.

The main advantage to the countywide system, Grote said, would be that its state-of-the-art equipment would offer uniform and thorough information to all dispatchers to enable them to respond effectively to the needs of callers.

Currently, he said, some dispatchers, especially full-time veterans such as Norma Lewis, carry in their heads extensive knowledge of local residents. But some dispatchers don’t have the same information and therefore respond less effectively, Grote said.

With the new Greene County center, dispatchers would, after receiving a call, immediately have at their disposal such computerized information as past criminal records and illnesses of those involved along with satellite imaging of the current movement around the home, all of which could help them effectively assess the situation, Grote said.

Joining the new countywide system would mean that Yellow Springs police would no longer be dependent on existing technical equipment that Grote described as “so antiquated that we can’t even get parts anymore.”

“Technology is changing so fast. There is no way Yellow Springs can keep up with the cost of new technology,” he said.

But the dispatchers would work outside Yellow Springs, and the new service would lack much of the personal connection that callers now feel when they contact the local police, the chief said.

“It’s tough to figure out how to do business if we take the dispatcher away,” Grote said. “It will change the way we work on the police side of things.”

“I can see the pros and cons of each way,” he said.

Other negative points about joining the countywide system would be increased travel time for Yellow Springs officers, who would need to pick up in person at the county center information that is too sensitive to fax or send another way.

The Police Department also feels “protective” of its dispatchers, Grote said, and would not eliminate their positions unless absolutely necessary.

However, he said, some dispatchers are near retirement age and some or all might be “absorbed” into the countywide system.

Currently, the department employs three full-time and five part-time dispatchers, who work around the clock, 365 days a year.

Yellow Springs has had its own dispatching service since the 1960s, and having such a service is “unique for a municipality of our size,” Grote said.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com