General News: Overnight Police Dispatch May Move to County
February 02, 2010
The Cornwall police chief is asking the town council to approve the elimination of the overnight dispatch service on site at police headquarters. If approved, service calls would rollover calls to the county dispatch, which would notify fire, police and ambulance services as needed.
Chief Todd Hazard told the council on Monday evening that the move would save the town $55-65,000 a year. He also said that the town dispatch receives about 700 calls for service on the midnight to 8 am shift. He noted that while the town of Blooming Grove has been using the county dispatch overnight for several years without problems, the town of Cornwall could re-instate the overnight shift if it became dissatisfied with the county dispatch.
Chief Hazard’s proposal comes at a time when the town is considering a joining a county-wide computerized tracking system that will allow county and partner law enforcement groups to see where police vehicles are located at any time. The automatic visual tracking system (AVL) means that dispatchers could send out the closest vehicle to respond to a serious, life-threatening call, even if the incident occurs outside that vehicle’s jurisdiction.
Cornwall-on-Hudson police chief Paul Weber says that he doesn’t see any reason for the village police department to join in the county AVL program. “We work by ourselves down here and there is no one that they would be pulling us to go on another call,” Weber said in a phone interview, adding that it’s not his department’s job to be answering calls for other departments outside its jurisdiction.
Comments:
No comments have been posted.
Add a Comment:
Please signup or login to add a comment.
|
 |
|
