In regards to the City of Centre’s talks about pulling away from the current Cherokee County Public Communications System, WEIS Radio News has received responses from Cherokee County 911 and the Cherokee County Association of Volunteer Fire Departments Radio Communications Committee who maintains the current P-25 Radio System being used within the county.

Following Friday’s meeting of Centre’s Radio Communication Committee with representatives of Sharp Communications and Motorola we reached out to those two entities for a response and on Saturday morning received emailed letters from both which can be viewed below.

A second meeting with officials from Sharp Communications and Motorola has been set with the Centre City Council for February 13th at 2:00 p.m. at Centre City Hall to discuss additional details concerning the matter.

Cherokee County 911

Press Release 2/3/2017

Cherokee County 911 responds to WEIS Radio about discussions and remarks made by the City of Centre. Cherokee County 911 wishes to inform the citizens who live inside the City of Centre what they can expect if the City of Centre decides to separate from the services currently provided by Cherokee County 911. I would first like to start off by saying Mayor Wilkie is right about one thing, Central Dispatch is the best thing for Cherokee County and has been for quite some time. Why try to fix something that is not broken?

When someone calls 911 an operator inside the 911 Center answers that 911 call, gathers the critical information while entering it into the Computer Aided Dispatching System (CAD System), pulls up the location of the emergency on the mapping system, and dispatches the appropriate agency or agencies all within an average time of 90 seconds. The reason the 911 Center is able to accomplish this is because of the dedicated operators and dispatcher along with the newly upgraded and state of the art equipment within the 911 Center, with more upgrades expected to come later this year. Cherokee County 911 staffs nine employees total: four operators, four dispatchers, and one secretary. The 911 Center is always staffed by a minimum of two employees. Some of the recent upgrades includes a new phone system, a new recorder/logger, and all new communications equipment. The new phone system allows the operators and dispatchers to quickly and efficiently handle calls where the 911 caller may be hearing or speech impaired, along with numerous other calls from people with disabilities. These types of calls could be handled before but were much more difficult prior to the upgrade due to all the different processes the operator had to go through. The new recorder and logging system has been installed within the last month. The new recorder increased our recording capacity which now allows for all incoming and outgoing phone lines to be recorded, all 911 trunks (lines) to be recorded, all transmit and receive audio from every public safety agency is now recorded, and it allows us to archive all recordings so if they are needed in the future they’re available. Cherokee County 911 also upgraded its communications systems about two years ago, with the cost of those upgrades totaling approximately $250,000. All of the funds used to upgrade the communications systems were part of the grant that the Cherokee County Association of Volunteer Fire Department applied for and received, so none of those costs were paid for by 911. If and when the City of Centre decides to terminate services provided by Cherokee 911 and a 911 call is made by someone who has an emergency or is needing help, once the 911 Operator determines that the 911 caller is requesting Fire or Police services inside the city limits of Centre, the 911 operator will then transfer that call to Centre and Centre will be responsible for handling those calls. When transferring 911 calls the operator first has to determine what kind of services are needed and where the location of the emergency is. Once that information is obtained and it’s determined that the caller is requesting the police or fire department from the City of Centre, the operator will ask the caller to stay on the line in order for them to transfer the call. This takes up valuable time and most often when someone calls 911 they want those requested emergency services immediately and don’t want to wait or have to talk to someone else and start over with explaining what they need.

 The operators and dispatchers are dedicated and well trained employees who take pride in what they do. Their job is tough and requires a lot of multi-tasking among many other skills. Out of 9 employees, the employee who has been employed for the shortest amount of time has been employed for approximately 10 years, which speaks volumes. These dispatchers and operators are very passionate about what they do and often times they do not get thanked enough. They are the unseen and overlooked heroes who have managed to keep it all together until the emergency call is over.

The City of Centre has approached the 911 board a couple of times to discuss what they call an unfair fee for services. After doing some math it appears the City of Centre should be able to hire two full time employees at a low salary that is equal to or greater than the fee that the City of Centre pays to the 911 board. This is without buying any equipment needed to operate their own dispatch, two employees only.

The purpose of this response is to inform the residents of Centre of what kind of services they are currently receiving from Cherokee 911. The 911 board wishes to continue to work out these differences with the City of Centre but the City of Centre has made it clear that they are not willing to do so because they want to do what they want to do, when they want to do it, how they want to do it, with no questions asked.  

Cherokee County Association of Volunteer Fire Departments

Radio Communications Committee

200 Maple Street Centre, Alabama 35960

Response to Centre’s Radio System Announcement – 2/2/17

The Cherokee County Association of Volunteer Fire Departments (CCAVFD) was unaware that the City of Centre was planning to leave our system. The contracts we have with the city to provide a communications system for their police and fire departments specifically state that all parties involved agree to participate in meetings and/or discussions as needed to review the requirements, terms and conditions of the agreement, and to discuss any outstanding issues related to the usage of the communications system. We have had no formal requests for any such meetings since their police department became a user in late 2016. However, we look forward to working with them to resolve any issues they may have or making their transition to their new system as smooth as possible should they decide to proceed with that plan.

As far as the costs of using the system are concerned, eighteen of Cherokee County’s public safety agencies currently use our system for their mission critical communications. These agencies include twelve of Cherokee County’s fire departments, all the police departments in Cherokee County, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department, Cherokee County EMA, and the Cherokee County Highway Department. Each of these users pays a small fee to cover the annual operation and maintenance costs. The system has been installed over the last two years as the result of a grant that the CCAVFD received. The total cost of installation was in excess of $1.1 million. The City of Centre was only responsible for $5,000. The $7,825 that the city pays annually is very reasonable compared to other models and for the services provided. The Cherokee County Public Safety Communications System is a mission critical communications system that was designed to allow reliable communications, maximum interoperability, better coverage, and increased system capacity. We are committed to ensuring our system is a reliable, valuable, and useful tool for all of our users.

Rich Lindsey

Chairman

CCAVFD Radio Communications Committee