According to the Facebook page, SAVE the Brentwood Dispatchers, started on Tuesday, the city of Brentwood is considering outsourcing its police and fire dispatch services from city employees to the East Central Dispatch Center (ECDC) in Richmond Heights.
An open letter to the Brentwood mayor and aldermen from the seven Brentwood dispatchers makes the case for keeping the jobs local.
The Facebook page was the idea of a former city employee and Brentwood resident who didn’t want to see the switch, according to a source who met with 40 South News. The source feeds information to the former employee for the site.
The source wonders why the city isn’t being transparent, and why the apparent rush? The source said no Brentwood fire or police staff has been told about the proposed switch.
The source said city staff has toured the ECDC and has heard from other police and fire departments that it’s a done deal.
The source said the ECDC has two radio channels — north and south. Brentwood would be added to the north channel along with Olivette, Clayton and Richmond Heights. Rock Hill, Maplewood and Shrewsbury are on the south channel.
The source said the ECDC is busy and it’s hard to get on the radio, and that safety would be jeopardized.
The Board of Aldermen was scheduled to discuss the change at a closed meeting on Monday according to the source. That meeting and the regular BOA meeting, the same night, were cancelled due to weather. The regular BOA meeting has been rescheduled for Jan. 14. There are no closed meetings posted on the city website.
City Administrator Bola Akande said the call to her from 40 South News Thursday morning asking for comment was the first time she had heard about it. Fire Chief Ted Jury and Chief of Police Steve Disbennett had no comment.
Dispatch consortiums have had a difficult year in St Louis. In the past 6 months, two area Public Safety Call Centers have closed.
MRS (Municipal Radio Service) and North Central County Fire Alarm have gone out of business. A third call center, Central County E-911 is imploding. Several CCE agencies are leaving due to the poor quality of service CCE is providing.
Currently, Brentwood has complete control over their own Dispatch Center, staffed by their employees who were chosen by their City Administrators.
Why would you give up that level of service and control, for a call center split between 8 cities, where Brentwood would have little if any say in hiring and firing?
Actually it’s three area Public Safety Call Centers: MRS (Municipal Radio Service), North Central County Fire Alarm and South County Fire Alarm have all closed. I forgot about South County Fire Alarm.
Sure sounds the like “The Source” is trying to control the outcome by manipulating the press. “The Source” is apparently deeply involved in the day-to-day operations of the City because how else would they know: “…no Brentwood fire or police staff has been told about the proposed switch”? and: have knowledge of where Brentwood staff go, and what other police and fire departments know? “The source said city staff has toured the ECDC and has heard from other police and fire departments that it’s a done deal.”
This “Source” clearly has high clearance to question every firefighter and police officer in Brentwood! Not to mention insider access to other police and fire department’s rumors. In addition, and this is what’s deeply disturbing about this article, this “Source” has an obvious agenda — to make government employees appear sneaky and underhanded and to kill the outsourcing of the dispatch services.
So let’s do some simple deductive reasoning: we know for certain “The Source” isn’t Ms Akande or the mayor because, quote, “The source wonders why the city isn’t being transparent.” I think we can safely assume the meaning of City includes the mayor and city administrator. It can’t be the police chief or fire chief—I hope we can safely assume they were reached for comment because neither of them was “The Source”?
The rest of the staff working in City Hall I doubt would have the authority, much less the audacity to ask every firefighter and police officer what they know about the deal with ECDC. An obvious source would be a fire or police staff member concerned about changes with a new dispatch system, but, nope, can’t be one of them because “The source said no Brentwood fire or police staff has been told about the proposed switch.” Just how the dispatchers knew about the proposed changes (to create the Facebook page) while police and fire staff didn’t, is a bit baffling. But maybe it’s because, and I quote again, “The source feeds information to the former employee…(who administers the facebook) site.” Is it possible “The Source” told the dispatchers about the proposed out-sourcing? If so, this “Source” is sitting in on some pretty high-level meetings.
I’m just left wondering who has this much access and (supposed) knowledge, a vested interest in keeping the dispatcher’s jobs, and making city employees look sneaky? Surely “The Source” isn’t one of the dispatchers, for that’d be a conflict of interest any journalism student would be ethically bound to reveal.
Perhaps an article about the pros and cons of outsourcing the City’s dispatch services would be a lot more helpful to the citizens of Brentwood then unsubstantiated rumors leaked by someone with an obvious political position or agenda?