The Price of Protection
New dispatching center to charge Village of Milan $10,000 a month

By Jim Maniaci
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — The Cibola Regional Communications Center board agreed Tuesday to charge the village of Milan a non-participant in the new consolidated dispatching center $10,000 a month for the rest of the fiscal year.

The board voted 5-0 to return to the monthly equivalent of what the Milan Village Board of Trustees had budgeted this year ($120,000), after earlier having heard figures ranging from $228,000 to $910,000 as the fees other New Mexico centers charge.

Board members agreed with CRCC Director Sheila Grant that the price had to be reasonable, but not too cheap, as an incentive for the village of Milan to join the city of Grants and county of Cibola in the new center.

Milan pulled out when the price rose to about $175,000 a year. That would have been one-third of the first year's projected operating cost (all except about $80,000 for personnel). Trustees felt Milan, as the smallest of the trio, would be bearing an unfairly large portion of the bill.

Plans remain that the cost of the second full year of operation would be based on each agency's percentage of total calls.

The Grants Police Department and Cibola Sheriff's Office will shut down their individual radio-sending services on April 27 and the new center capital costs paid from state and federal grants are now up to $1.4 million, according to Cibola County Undersheriff Johnny Valdez, who spearheaded the effort for two years until Grant was named director is scheduled to launch transmissions with an enhanced 9-1-1 system at 11:30 a.m. April 27.

Board members Jerry Stephens (chair and Milan police chief), Joe Chavez (public member), Marty Vigil (Grants police chief), Manuel Lujan (sheriff) and Elliott Knighton (Grants acting fire chief) also directed Grant to research what other centers charge private companies, such at the local ambulance company, then circulate a letter for board members approval. Board members Joe DeSoto (rural fire departments) and Keith Austin (Milan fire chief) could not attend.

Chairman Stephens also reported County Manager David Ulibarri had not replied to the board's April 2 letter asking for what has been spent so far, as the county acts as the fiscal agent for the new agency.

The board approved Grant's hiring of Lee Eaton and Alvita Sarracino as the two supervisors, the number two positions under Grant. The board also approved beginning the county personnel paperwork to transfer the remaining six dispatchers from the city and county.

In addition to the anticipated addition of Milan, the Acoma Pueblo's new police chief, Kevin Mariano, attended the meeting in the Sheriff's Office Conference Room. (That room becomes the county's primary emergency operations center when a disaster occurs.)

He said he was there to begin collecting information on what it would cost and what would be required. One immediate stumbling block for his five dispatchers would be their pay the minimum is now $11.75 per hour compared to the CRCC's $9.

The tribal department has a total of 13 officers, including the chief, of which 11 are commissioned.

All the police agencies in the county, including the New Mexico State Police Division and the Motor Transport Division, work closely together because of the lack of large staffs.

County Emergency Management Director Peggy Jordan also participated in the meeting, since she has sought grants in the past and is continuing to do so for the new agency.

The new center is located in downtown Grants on the north side of the county complex where the old sheriff's dispatching rooms have been enlarged and remodeled with the latest technology added.

Grant noted that she expects to start phase two of the E-9-1-1 system in early July. The second phase will pick up all cellular telephone calls in the county, take them directly into the new center and use global positioning technology to pinpoint their locations, even while the caller drives down the road.

Dispatchers will then contact the appropriate agency to respond.

To contact reporter Jim Maniaci in Grants, telephone 285-6184 or (505) 870-7775 (cellular).