ASHLAND – Elected officials from Ashland and Ashland County journeyed to Wooster Monday to see the Wooster Ashland Regional Council Of Governments dispatch center.
By the time they left, most of the tour participants were talking about the city leaving WARCOG to rejoin the county’s dispatch center. Better known by its acronym, WARCOG is a 9-1-1 dispatch center for the cities of Ashland, Wooster and Orrville.
The center has been in operation about two years. Before that, the City of Ashland had a combined dispatch center with Ashland County.
Ashland County’s dispatch center is still in operation at the Sheriff’s Office in the Justice Center complex, and most 9-1-1 calls from the city go through the county dispatch center before being transferred to WARCOG in Wooster.
Many community members and elected officials alike have been critical of the formation of WARCOG, mostly because it’s costing residents of the city and county more to operate two dispatch centers than it did to operate one.
“The idea of the WARCOG was to increase safety and service as well as to save money,” Ashland City Council president Steve Workman said. “So far it’s done neither.”
Ashland Mayor Matt Miller said he wanted to bring city council to the WARCOG facility as Ashland is revisits the decision to be part of WARCOG. He also invited county officials to come along so everyone could receive the same information and begin a dialogue about next steps.
All five city council members and all three county commissioners were present, along with the mayor and the sheriff. Most of the group rode together on an Ashland Public Transit bus.
WARCOG director Nancy Jewitt and operations supervisor Cody Post led the tour and answered questions about equipment and operations.
They emphasized the facility’s state-of-the-art equipment, the comfortable setup for dispatchers and the deliberate redundancies in everything from electrical service to network switches.
Post explained that one dispatcher is dedicated to Ashland law enforcement calls while another handles fire and EMS calls for all three cities and a third handles Wooster’s and Orrville’s law enforcement calls. Each of those three dispatchers sit at desks with six monitors, and three additional desks are available in case of emergency or in case other municipalities join the council of governments.
The room is also equipped with two larger television monitors to serve as additional screens if needed. A third large screen shows a live weather radar map.
Ashland City Council member Dan Lawson asked whether the same dispatchers handle Ashland every day, and expressed concern about whether dispatchers would know the Ashland area well. Post responded that the dispatchers rotate so all will be familiar with all areas so they can step in on any desk if someone calls off.
Miller asked Post to explain what would happen if someone called 9-1-1 from Ashland. Post said a dispatcher in Ashland would take the call and press a direct transfer button. It would take about 1.5 seconds to transfer the call to Wooster, he said.
Post said the center receives 100 to 200 9-1-1 calls from Ashland each month, as well as about 700 from Wooster and Orrville combined. He said the center takes 6,000 to 7,000 telephone calls a month in busy summer months, and they once had as many as 10,000.
“It was a very big learning curve in the beginning,” Post said of the high call volume.
Ashland County Sheriff Wayne Risner was not impressed by the operation.
“It’s a dispatch center,” he said. “They’ve got some newer stuff here obviously, but that happens every five or six years anyway. We’re getting ready to do that here soon, and most of what they can do, we can do.”
Risner said the county is considering spending about $700,000 on a system upgrade for the sheriff’s office that would update not only the dispatch center but also the jail and other operations. There would also be additional costs for things like furniture as the current furniture would not be compatible with the new technology, he said.
In addition to creating a duplication of costs, Risner said the city’s decision to leave the county dispatch and join WARCOG has created a communications gap between the city and county agencies.
“If it was up to me, I think we take better care of our own selves in our own county,” Risner said. “We’re not talking to each other like we used to. This has created some really serious problems.”
All three Ashland County Commissioners agreed.
“I think the best-case scenario after looking at everything is, I would hope the city of Ashland can come back,” commissioner Mike Welch said. “I know we’re looking to do our upgrades and it would be nice to bring that money back to Ashland County,” Welch said.
The city expects its share of WARCOG costs to be $511,175 in 2018, according to a budget provided to council members by Miller.
On the bus ride back to Ashland, the city and county officials began talking about what it would take to bring the city back to the county dispatch.
“The elephant in the room is the money,” county commissioner Jim Justice said.
While he could not provide a number for what it would cost the city to rejoin the county’s dispatch, Justice said he believes the county could beat WARCOG’s cost.
In addition to the budget, the mayor also gave council members copies of the WARCOG agreement, which runs for five years and then renews automatically unless two thirds of the members choose not to renew it. Miller said it’s unclear what date the five years starts from as the agreement went into effect in 2015 but was amended in 2017. The agreement also states that members may withdraw at any time with two years notice.
Workman said he believes WARCOG should dissolve and both Wooster and Ashland should join with their respective counties.
Other council members said they had not yet seen Ashland County’s dispatch center and wanted to do so before making a decision. Risner invited them to come “anytime,” and Miller indicated he would set up another tour.
Regardless of what happens, Matt Miller said now is the time to look ahead rather than to dwell on the past.
“This is the point where we move forward … We’re starting fresh. We’re going to do our homework. And we’re going to do what’s best for the community,” Miller said.
