To clarify their stand on maintaining their team of local dispatchers, the trustees of Mad River Township called a meeting last Friday, April 8. Stating that representatives from the Clark County Commission and Clark County Sheriff’s Office were supposed to attend, the trustees said they received word Thursday that those representatives could not make it.
Township Board President Bob McClure said the trustees felt it important to continue the meeting in order to explain to resident why the township is maintaining its position on retaining their local dispatching system instead of switching to the county dispatching service.
“We want to clarify our dispatching process and explain why we’re taking this position,” said McClure. “Mrs. Estep met with Mr. Detrick a few weeks back to discuss our concerns, yet criticism was still directed our way.”
The township has been subject to criticism from county representatives in recent weeks due to their decision to build a centralized dispatching center in their fire station rather than contract with county services. Clark County Commissioner John Detrick has been especially vocal in his concerns for the township’s decision, saying in past interviews that Mad River Township does not seem to care about the reported cost savings of switching to the county system.
“They’re the only township of 65 in west-central Ohio that does their own dispatching,” Detrick said recently.
Mad River Township Trustee Kathy Estep said in Friday’s meeting that she believes Detrick’s comparisons to be too dramatic. Township Fire Chief Tracy Young explained that Mad River Township’s dispatching is considered to be a “secondary” Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), while the county’s service is deemed the primary PSAP for Clark County. He also added that secondary PSAPs are not unheard of in this area, as Montgomery County also maintains a regional dispatching system, but Huber Heights acts as a secondary PSAP as well, providing services for Vandalia, Butler Township, and the City of Riverside.
Young said the majority of 911 calls within Clark County go first to the county system, and are then transferred to Mad River Township dispatchers as needed, so that local fire and EMS crews can be dispatched appropriately. He noted that the system was designed for county dispatchers to receive the call, record information, and then transfer the call to a secondary PSAP within one minute of the call being received. He listed Mad River Township Fire and EMS, Hustead Fire, Hustead EMS, and Pitchin Fire departments as secondary units under the umbrella of Mad River Township’s dispatching.
Young said that from the moment the call hits the primary PSAP to the time his crews respond, it should take eight minutes, adding that with a department of his size, sometimes those numbers can reach ten minutes, but noted that their average run time lately has been six minutes.
Young broke down his defense of township dispatching services in three “pillars,” noting that his dispatchers are knowledgeable without the use of “fancy GIS systems,” accountable for responding township crews, and crucial to the township’s Safe and Sound program.
Mad River Township currently employs four part-time dispatchers and one alternate, all of whom work out of their homes. The township is currently in the process of bidding prices for building a centralized dispatching center in the fire station, bringing all current dispatchers out of their homes to work in the centralized office, plus the addition of new hires, Young said, adding that the dispatchers would also see a raise in pay to be more competitive with surrounding departments.
Commissioner Detrick spoke to the Eagle regarding the county’s inability to attend Friday’s meeting, saying: We wish Mad River Township well and they can make their own decision of what they want to do. They are the only township of 65 in west-central Ohio that does their own dispatching, which means two calls where the other nine townships in Clark County have one call,” Detrick said.
“And we have a state of the art technology that is better than human beings and we’re even going to make it better with some better investments this year,” Detrick added.
Young said one of the county’s biggest mistake with their dispatching is relying too much on technology, which causes erroneous dispatches, referencing the Jackson Street in the City of Springfield versus Jackson Road in Green Township issue.
“If you hang your hat on technology, it can hang you out to dry,” Young said, praising the familiarity of his dispatchers with local neighborhoods and addresses, as many of them have been working for the township for more than 20 years.
Trustee McClure said he believes the county representatives have made the decision to stop pressuring the township into switching to their services, and believed that to be the reason why no one from the county showed up at Friday’s meeting.
“It appears to me that a decision was made to maybe back away from this,” McClure said. “The indication is that they’re backing away.”
The Mad River Township Trustees will meet Monday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the fire station in Enon. Any township residents with questions regarding this issue or any others are welcome to attend with questions or respectful comments.