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The City of Mercer Island will cease operations of it's communications center at 3am on November 10th, 2004. Fire Dispatch will go to Eastside Communications (unit numbering should stay the same, as they are already part of Zone 1), and police dispatching will go to Kirkland PD.

Brad.

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Whatever.....

Any idea why? Is this temporary?

It's the cost of doing bizness. By the time you keep paying for Radio upgrades, phone upgrades, CAD, the cost per call keeps climbing. Several other small agencies have moved to bigger disptach centers to keep the $$$ down. You still may see one more reconsider. Small centers are a dying breed.

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I generate Board Warnings

That's basically it. As I was told, they had pushed the technology in their Comm Center to the limit, and upgrades were absolutely necessary - however, the City Council didn't want to spend the money that way when a contractual alternative was available (read: cheaper to farm it out).

And, with the 800mhz system, it's not too difficult to do. Either double up on someone elses talkgroup, or have a comm center create a new one. Don't have to "find a new frequency".

Flip a few switches, and the PSAP routing goes to other places.

Other Comm Centers will follow, I'm sure.

Brad.

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Whatever.....

...and when the 'big one' hits, there will still be the same few operators at the 'central dispatch' site to handle ALL of the city/counties dispatching for police and fire IF the trunked system stays on the air. (But meanwhile, it will be less expensive to provide emergency communications at a central dispatch point.) Obversely, if the main dispatching site was shut down for whatever reason...

Just objective reasoning here of course. It's totally ir-rational to expect that a major disaster would ever occur in our beautiful area. :)

Here's an awesome idea. They could save even more money if they linked ALL of the police/fire city/county 911 dispatching via satellite to operators offshore, like to India or Japan...

:) Back in the 70s I was a PCF no trunked radio just 154.190 KOK856single room and dispatcher, for police and fireshe needed help BUT was cute! Well you see who wom out LOL !
GOOD LUCK MI

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GOD BLESS 73s

No don't farm it out, I like my job, no I love my job! But then again I'm in Thurston County and we are a consolitaded center so I don't have too much to worry about, yet. Any of the Mercer Island people want to come down south we will take you, we are a couple people down still I think.

All kidding aside, it is more economical to have it all in one place, one stop shopping or 911'ing. No need to transfer from one PSAP to another like in pierce county. You could have one incident but end up talking to 2 - 3 different PSAP's and 2 - 3 different dispatcher all of which will ask the same question.

I hope Mercer Island's dispatchers union insisted on their people being allowed to transfer with their dispatch center. Sad to see a center go but in a way, small way, I understand the rational. No new taxes, no center. Costs for running a center go up faster then the 1% property tax raise can cover unless you add a special levy. We in Thurston added .01% to the sales tax and so far that not only took the burden off our user agencies, but has allowed our funding to stay the same as long as people shop in the county.

Ok, I'm done rambling, sorry just had to add my 2 cents worth.

PK

Are Mercer Island PD Units still going to be dispatched through 18864, 18896, and 18928 and fire through it talkgroups?

Mercer Island Fire will likely be "assimilated" into the current Eastside TG plan (FDISP-1 for dispatches, then sent to an FTAC for the response). Mercer Island Fire was already using FDISP-4 for their dispatch and operations.

Don't know how Kirkland PD plans on handling the police stuff - likely they will put it all on the main Kirkland PD Dispatch Talkgroup (to begin with, anyway).

Brad.

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Whatever.....

I apologize if these questions are stupied, but will MI PD then have to listen to Kirkland traffic as well as thiers? Why not just keep the MI dispatch on a seperate channel (as it is already setup), but have the same dispatch center switch between Kirkland and MI as necessary?

Can anyone post an update/follow up to the Mercer Island PD and FD situation.

Is Mercer Island PD being dispatched on Kirkland's dispatch talkgroup or is Kirkland using Mercer Island's dispatch talkgroup to dispatch Mercer Island PD.

Also is Eastside Fire using Fire Disp-4 to dispatch Mercer Island fire or are they using Fire Disp-1.

Basically what I'm asking is, is any of Mercer Island's talkgroups being used or not.

Richard

Mercer Island Fire is being dispatched by Disp 1. They are listed as 91 and 92 units. I also hear them respond on Tac 1, 2, 3, etc.

Brian