1 Beavers, Esther
From:[email protected]
Sent:Tuesday, August 15, 2023 3:05 PM
To:[email protected]
Subject:City Council Item 7 - Consolidated Dispatch Center - 8/15/2023 agenda Follow Up Flag:Follow up
Flag Status:Flagged
Dear Council and Mayor Moy,
I apologize for sending this email, I am enrolled in a course on Tuesday evenings, but wishes to be heard in this matter.
My name is David Stevens, I am a life long Solano County resident, currently residing in English Hills (rural Vacaville). I resided in Fairfield the first 25 years of my life, and my mother recently sold our childhood home. I like some of you, I was a multi-generational graduate of Armijo High.
Solano County has an emergency services efficiency issue. Every emergency starts with the reporting aspect. Rural Solano County is intermingled around the perimeters of the 7 cities. Time delays with multiple dispatch centers, needs for additional resources and minimum resources requiring calling other dispatch centers. This is time consuming and creates unnecessary delays when delays can have catastrophic impacts.
Emergencies do not know boundaries. This has been made clear with our most recent and destructive wildfire the LNU Complex. This incident seriously threatened the communities of Fairfield and Vacaville.
Not just a consolidated dispatch center, but consolidated emergency services benefits every Solano County citizen both rural and urban. A singular dispatch center creates the opportunity for implementing best-known-practices such as emergency medical dispatch, closest unit, automatic station coverage independent of organizational boundary. We would be operating as one, one community, which we are, Solano County.
As an example, CHP dispatches to 9-bay area counties from the Benicia Golden Gate Dispatch Center.
This consolidated concept can be developed through a Joint Powers Authority, or other legal means. Will it be easy, we’ll, it will only be as hard as we make it. So, let’s make it easy.
Today, the Fairfield Fire Department is delivering service to the Cordelia Fire Protection District. This service is efficient and effective, but those ‘9-1-1’ calls first go to the Sheriff’s Office. All emergency calls must first go to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), and Cordelia’s District is unincorporated Solano.
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2 With a consolidated dispatch center it would not matter where you reside in Solano County, every dispatcher would have the ability to manage emergencies across the region. Communities such as Napa and Yolo have experienced great success with consolidated dispatch services.
Would everyone need to be willing to embrace change, yes. Would every agency get everything their way, no. Everyone would need to come to the table and be willing to adapt and embrace efficiency gains for the betterment of the greater community.
Every Solano County dispatch center suffers from staffing challenges, these are not easy jobs and these jobs are highly competitive. By creating a consolidated type of dispatch center, efficiency is gained, and the existing dispatch centers stop competing with each other for staff. Salary and benefits could be highly competitive because of the gain in organizational efficiency, and depth can be added to the dispatch centers to help manage fatigue, PTSD (acute and chronic), by allowing staff to step away from their consoles following a triggering event/incident.
By addressing PTSD immediately, statics show, staff has a much higher probability of recovering from the event. We must be more cognizant of the impacts these stressful jobs impact our personnel, and being independent and inefficient does not help correct that problem. The steps can help increase longevity, and most important, employee health.
These opportunities do not exist in the existing minimum staffed dispatch centers, some probably well below recognized standards or safety benchmarks.
A consolidated dispatch wins huge gain during emergency responses. If the dispatch center is created, all of the other efficiencies fall into place (closest unit response, station move up and coverage, etc…).
These efforts create tremendous gains to the customer which should always be our ultimate goal, doing more effectively and efficiently while raising the benchmark and implementing best-known-practices that every community members gains.
With a singular dispatch center programs such as PulsePoint and coordination with hands-only CPR and Heart Safe Communities. This item alone can afford the community members to become citizen first responders in the event of a CPR event. Fast and effective CPR is one of the great gifts a community member could deliver to a fellow community member in need.
Please reconsider your position on this matter, please stay open to the idea of improving services. Change can be uncomfortable if we allow it, let’s embrace change and collectively develop a regional dispatch center for all services.
David Stevens
Solano County Resident
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