An online petition to stop the “outsourcing” of Brentwood’s police, fire and emergency dispatching to the East Central Dispatch Center (ECDC) has more than one hundred signers — 116 — as of Tuesday morning.
Brentwood resident Brandon Jones started the petition to keep the city’s dispatching local less than a week ago. He said he would present it at the next board of aldermen meeting, which for now is March 3.
Brentwood Fire Chief Ted Jury spoke in favor of the city using the ECDC dispatch center at the Feb. 3 board of aldermen meeting.
A letter signed by 24 Brentwood police officers opposed to the change was delivered to Mayor Pat Kelly before the meeting. He said he appreciates the officers’ support for their seven friends, who are Brentwood dispatchers, but the city needs to think of the future.
Kelly said at the Feb. 3 meeting that the aldermen would have something to vote on to decide the future of the city’s dispatching at the next meeting.
L. Forsley, I suggest you watch this news clip from ksdk. This neighbor does NOT feel safe waking up with a Central Dispatch. I live on York Drive in Brentwood. Clayton also has a York Drive! http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/local/2014/02/07/fire-department-wrong-home-florissant/5290915/
L. Forsley- The back story to the objections of many Brentwood residents over the dispatcher issue is that for one thing most people who have been paying attention to city hall here these past few years have a deep seated distrust for many of the officials who occupy the building, elected and hired.
Also there is a never ending agenda of “new business” in Brentwood, its never ending. Every month its some big new issue. Most of these originate from the Mayors office….see paragraph above.
What will some of the petition signers do when they find out 70,000 of their neighbors wake up every morning feeling safe? Thousands of rescues, thousands of lives saved, hundreds of thousands of calls. Clayton, Richmond Heights, Maplewood, Shrewsbury, Webster Groves, Olivette. Most of them have been doing so for TEN years and counting. This is not a new idea. Who is actually uninformed here? Maybe Brandon will be good enough to fetch over the $350,000 the city says they will not have to pay annually if they contract with a better service.
Thanks for posting this Doug.
Thank you Brandon for the good work in getting the information out–and using the Sunshine Laws to acquire the memo re The Sports attic. There are somethings I would like to see remain local. EMS calls is one.