Dispatch center to begin at 11:30 a.m., on April 27

By Jim Maniaci
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — With the official beginning of operations by the Cibola Regional Communications Center, Cibola County will be the first rural county in New Mexico to have a fully enhanced computerized system in a consolidated dispatch center, starting at 11:30 a.m. April 27, according to Director Sheila Grant.

Training and practice of the nine people who will operate it 24 hours every day, including the director, two supervisors and six dispatchers, will go on until a half-hour before the "go-live" time.

The starting date was pushed back one final time by two days to be sure all the training is completed before operations begin.

"Two different systems have to be integrated," the director said Wednesday of the tasks which have to be learned. In addition to the enhanced 9-1-1 system, dispatchers will use a computer system which eliminates hand-written or manually typed logs.

With an enhanced system, any landline call to the emergency number automatically shows the location of the caller's telephone a tremendous aid in getting first responders to the scene without them having to drive around looking for the spot, or if the caller doesn't know the address.

Grant said she has spent more than 100 hours typing into the system the radio codes and identifications for police, fire and ambulance units and workers-volunteers every single emergency response individual has a different number.

This includes the Grants and Milan police and fire units, the sheriff's units, the Ramah, Acoma and Laguna tribal units and the 13 rural volunteer fire departments.

The center will begin with a phase one operation, using the enhanced 9-1-1 system.

"Once it's integrated, we will be going into phase two, which means we will have cellular phone locations through the Geographic Information System by longitude and latitude," she explained. She noted that a driver on any road using a cell phone would automatically be located and tracked.

The state will pick up the to-be-determined additional capital costs, just as state and federal grants have paid the $1.3 million capital costs of expanding the old Cibola County Sheriff's Office dispatching center into the joint city-county three-station communications center.

With the conversion, the old dispatch centers at the Grants police station and the new sheriff's office just outside the east city limits will cease operations.

Monday, the Cibola County Board of Commissioners voted 5-0 to approve an agreement in principle to split the operating costs from Feb. 26 through June 30 with the city of Grants, naming the county as the fiscal agent as well as honoring the provisions of the Nov. 29, 2004, joint powers agreement. Commissioners also voted 5-0 to use the McKinley Metro Dispatch as the backup system.

This means the city and county will split up to $173,602 in costs for the one-third of the year left in the current budget. The actual price should be much less since Grant is the only employee on the payroll until the regional center's board approves the appointment of Les Eaton from the city and Alvita Sarracino from the county as the two supervisors. The six dispatchers will be added soon after that to the payroll of the new agency.

The regional board will meet at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the sheriff's office conference room.

Originally the village of Milan was a partner in the project, but balked and then dropped out. Trustees had committed $120,000 in this year's budget while the city and county did not budget specific amounts, replacing dollars with statements to pay whatever it cost. The village bailed out when the price reached close to $175,000. Trustees also felt it wasn't right for Milan to have to pay an equal one-third share of the first year's operation. The plan is that future years' payments would be based on the ratio of responses among the three governments.

Later the Milan trustees were told the village would be charged between $240,000 and $864,000, based on at least $10 a month per resident, for not participating.

The village manager said he did not like the village being held hostage and Mayor Tom Ortega had even stronger words, calling it outright blackmail. Milan will continue to dispatch its own officers and volunteer firefighters from the police station.

The 7-member regional board is expected to set the price at its Tuesday meeting. The board's chair is Milan Police Chief Jerry Stephens. Milan Fire Chief Keith Austin, citizen (and former Milan Trustee) Joe Chavez as the public member, Grants Police Chief Marty Vigil, Grants Acting Fire Chief Elliott Knighton and Rural Cibola County Fire Chief's Association President Joe DeSoto also are on the board with Sheriff Manual Lujan.

Also at Monday's county commission meeting, County Manager David Ulibarri commented about Milan's liability if it drops even one 9-1-1 relay. "I would advise Milan to think about it...," leaving the rest of his expression to the imagination and adding one more bit of pressure to force the village into the cooperative agency.
The state allows only one public safety answering point (PSAP) per county.