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The chances of the city and county dispatch centers merging anytime soon faded Friday when the Allen County commissioners postponed a vote on a formal agreement with Fort Wayne for at least 60 days.
Commissioner Bill Brown suggested giving the extra time so Sheriff Ken Fries and Fort Wayne Police Chief Rusty York could cobble together a better version of the agreement.
Brown said he wanted a six-person operations board instead of the proposed seven-member board. But he also said the sheriff’s support is paramount.
Brown also said he doesn’t want to set a firm deadline for Fries and York.
Commissioner Linda Bloom noted that officials have until 2014 to consolidate the city and county dispatch centers under a new state law that mandates Indiana counties have no more than two 911 dispatching centers.
Currently Allen County has three, including New Haven, which was not part of the recent proposal.
Bloom also said Fries and York, along with area fire chiefs, should have been consulted when Commissioner Nelson Peters and Deputy Mayor Greg Purcell drafted the agreement. A previously suggested operating structure proposed by Fries wasn’t included in the draft, she said.
Peters said the proposed governing structure wasn’t significantly different than what Fries suggested in a letter sent to the commissioners in December. Small changes such as appointing a member of the city and county councils to the governing board could easily be made.
Peters said the commissioners likely would have made appointments to the board based on Fries’ recommendations, and likely the sheriff would have also sat on the board.
Peters agreed to the delay in hopes of not killing the possibility of a merger. But he said he is not confident that anything will come from the efforts of York and Fries.
York said he is optimistic that he and Fries can move the issue forward.
In comparison to previous attempts to merge dispatch operations, past sheriffs refused to consider anything but giving the sheriff full control. That stance ended any further discussion, York said.
Fries said Friday he doesn’t prefer using a board to govern dispatching, but he is following a model spelled out in state law. He also said he wanted any formal agreement to include more specifics about the way dispatch would be run and how calls would be handled.
He hoped to gain input from the local volunteer fire department chiefs as well.
For more on this story, see Saturday’s print editions of The Journal Gazette, or visit www.journalgazette.net after 3 a.m. Saturday.
aiacone@jg.net
