911 services consolidation complete

After decades of talk, lawsuits and stalled plans, the consolidation of the Delaware city and county 911 call centers took effect at 8:30 a.m. on March 30.

When county and city residents call 911, dispatchers now answer "Delaware County communications," the new name for the center bringing dispatching for fire, police, emergency medical services and the emergency management agency under one umbrella. The new logo for the department abbreviates the name to DELCOMM.

Only the sheriff's office still maintains its own dispatchers, who work alongside the consolidated dispatchers.

The consolidation was "bittersweet for city communications," said city manager Tom Homan, because the city's dispatchers have moved out of the police station on Union Street and into the call center in the basement of the county commission building at 101 N. Sandusky Street.

As he waited for the computers to be shut off at the police station and calls to be rerouted to the call center, Delaware police Capt. Bruce Pijanowski said he had "mixed emotions. This has been a long time coming and a lot of work but everyone has pulled together to make this happen."

He also said he is sorry to see the city dispatchers -- some of whom have been with the department for 22 years -- leave their "home."

Anyone calling 911 since the switch shouldn't have noticed any difference, said Bob Greenlaw, emergency communications director. The only differences are the phone numbers for non-emergency calls -- (740) 203-1111 -- and the police administrative offices -- (740) 203-1100.

The day following the change, Greenlaw said the system "delivered as promised" and no calls were lost.

There are still a few "hiccups," he said, a few technical issues to be smoothed over.

Pijanowski, who was reassigned to the communications center for several months to assist in the conversion, agreed.

"Things are going fairly well We still need to fine-tune a few things," he said.

City dispatchers face a learning curve with the new system, he said. Much of what they've done in the past is "second nature" to them and now they have to think through the steps they must go through for each call, he said. He compared it to installing a newer version of Windows on a computer.

"You have to learn it all over again," he said.

Consolidation of the city and county's 911 dispatch services has been discussed for almost 20 years. After the last failed attempt in 2008, both sides agreed to appoint a governing board with representation from the city and county government, fire, police and emergency leaders, and elected officials. Homan is board chairman.

The county commissioners hired a 911 director in September 2008 but he left after a few weeks, citing differences with county administration and internal problems within the department. The board spent several months deciding what kind of person it needed and conducted a national search, hiring Greenlaw last August.

Greenlaw brought with him more than 40 years of experience in public safety. Most recently he oversaw the consolidation of police, sheriff, fire and EMS communications for all the municipalities in Blaine County, Idaho. Before that, he brought together the communication departments of 17 municipalities in New Jersey.

At a joint meeting of the city council and county commissioners March 29, Greenlaw said this was the smoothest transition he has experienced.

"I've done this before but I've never had the unilateral cooperation that I had here," he said.

Delaware police chief Russ Martin said it took the brushing aside of egos to get it done.

"When we began to set aside the turf wars, egos and self-interest, then we began to work on the issues," he said.

EMS chief Rob Farmer said the cooperation trickled down to those who climb into the ambulances, fire trucks and cruisers every day.

"The day the name changed (prior to the switchover) to DELCOMM, that day everybody in the county started using that because everybody was ready to get on board," he said.

"We all shared a vision" and agreed the change would go forward, said Delaware fire chief John Donohue.