Cynthia Davis
Record-Bee staff
LAKE COUNTY ? Dispatching police officers and firefighters to emergency incidents is a vital link in providing public safety services.
Janell Rivera, the communications manager for the Lake County Sheriff”s Office Dispatch Center, has long recognized the need to employ modern technologies, tools and processes to improve the critical call taking and dispatching functions.
Recently Rivera and her team unveiled the new state-of-the-art emergency dispatch center in Lakeport and moved into the facility. Goals for the center include better service to the community and accommodating greater technology to dispatch emergency help when and where it”s needed.
The center”s construction began in April 2005, but preparing for the project goes back to 2001. Built at a cost of $1.38 million, the center is one of the first consolidated police/fire/emergency medical services dispatch centers of its kind. It will give dispatchers an innovative workspace coupled with the most current computerized radio dispatching equipment available.
The new 3,001-square-foot facility has more than 10 times the work space of the original dispatch center, which began operation in 1990 and encompassed a mere 250 square feet, tucked inside the courthouse.
“When one person got sick, everyone got sick,” said Rivera.
To help prevent illness being spread among dispatchers, the new center has a central vacuum system. It also features skylights, flexible-use workspace, office space, a training room, entrance lockers, a full kitchen with a dining area, separate men”s and women”s bathrooms and even a “quiet” room for the dispatchers who keep the center operational 24 hours a day.
The center is equipped with acoustical wall panels for soundproofing and noise control. It has seven ergonomic, curved workstations with push-button-controlled adjustable consoles that allow dispatch operators to raise and lower the desk height to adjust to each dispatcher”s comfort level. Work stations even offer the center”s staff the option of sitting or standing.
The technologically forward center offers specialized task lighting, individual motion-detecting air systems and portable “desks” that roll under the workspace.
Even the paint colors on the walls were researched to provide a calm and soothing environment, said Rivera. Keeping calm is important in a job at the dispatch center, which Rivera said receives 100 to 120 true emergency calls within a 24-hour period.
In addition to answering 911 calls for the Clearlake Police Department, Lake County dispatchers serve local fire departments and ambulance companies, dispatching fire crews and coordinating emergency 911 responses via fully digital radio/telephone/911 dispatch communication consoles.
The consoles” primary purpose is to allow a dispatcher to manage the complex array of information and communications present in today”s dispatch environment. They allow dispatchers to perform tasks such as communicating with field personnel via radio base stations, answering 911 phone calls, placing administrative phone calls, monitoring alarm status information and controlling auxiliary equipment in one seamless user interface.
North Hollywood-based Moducom is the company that designed and manufactured the communication control systems.
“On the system we installed for Lake County we have the radio, telephone and 911 lines all incorporated into the same electronics package,” said Dan Vandenberg, Moducom”s customer service manager. “There is a bank of electronics in the back room, which connects to all 911 telephone lines and allows the dispatchers to communicate through the same device ? this ensures a faster, more efficient response because the operators are not wasting time switching between different communication devices.”
The dispatch center is equipped with integrated systems such as computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and geographic information systems (GIS). CAD integrates many disparate pieces of information into one user-friendly environment to assist in the call taking and dispatching functions of responding to an event; GIS aids the dispatcher in directing an officer or a trooper to a scene quickly and accurately.
One of the statistical reports available is a call time report which shows ring time, hold time and length of call.
These features allow Rivera to make staffing decisions based on call volume, an important feature since last year, Rivera”s 16 employees, working over two shifts, took approximately 6,000 emergency calls and 85,000 non-emergency calls.
The dispatch center also has a new number for reporting nonemergencies: 263-2690.
For those interested in working as a call taker or communications operator, call the county”s Personnel Department, 262-4212.
Contact Cynthia Davis at cdavis@record-bee.com.
