Editorial: Full council should vote, support dispatcher deal

As many of its members prepare to face voters in November, Newark City Council could make its second big decision in a month Monday night.

Will majority Democrats allow a full council vote on a proposal from Republican Mayor Jeff Hall to move Newark police dispatching to the county’s new 911 center? Or will they follow the course of the Personnel Committee on Aug. 10 which rejected a Hall proposal for hiring part-time firefighters to fill staffing gaps and keep all four fire stations open?

It would be a travesty for a committee to again kill a worthy proposal before it reaches the full body of 10 members and the tie-breaking council president.

The people of Newark deserve to see where all of their elected representatives stand. That should have happened on the part-time firefighter issue, too.

Hall’s proposed agreement would save the city between about $225,000 and $250,000 annually and eliminates the need to buy computer-aided dispatch equipment estimated to cost an additional $300,000 to $500,000, although Safety Director Bill Spurgeon told us it’s actually more than $600,000.

We fully support Mayor Hall’s proposal for a litany of reasons:

• The city must find ways to save money or we will lose even more firefighters, police officers and other employees. Next year’s budget will be ugly even if dispatching moves.

• The county 911 center has an outstanding record of serving Newark through the fire dispatching services it has provided for many years. And it operates in a brand new digital facility designed to serve the entire county with quality and efficiency.

• All 911 calls are currently routed to the county, which then transfers police calls to Newark. This wastes precious time and forces callers to restate their issue.

• The current analog police dispatching facility is so outdated dispatchers write down caller information on cards, creating opportunities for errors, and making it very difficult to study the department’s activities.

• Every argument against this proposal we’ve seen is based on emotion, not key facts. Most importantly, the eight Newark employees who would lose their jobs will likely be hired by the county and receive slightly higher pay.

• If many of the same dispatchers do move, police concerns about new people working on the other end of their radio lifeline is mitigated. Either way, there will always be new dispatchers from time to time.

Our only concern is the county’s willingness to drop its fee for fire dispatching from $300,000 annually to $115,000 if the city takes the deal. We’ve long wondered why Newark was paying so much when other jurisdictions have paid zero. We believe Newark should pay less for fire dispatching regardless of what happens to this deal.

With that said, we strongly support this plan and anxiously await the committee vote Monday.

It will be even more interesting to see how voters react come November.