Colton’s police dispatchers might be working for the Fontana Police Department beginning early next year.
Under the plan, Colton would pay for the Fontana Police Department to answer 9-1-1 calls from Colton residents and coordinate Colton officers, allowing it to end its own dispatch service and save a minimum of $150,000 but potentially as much as $400,000 a year, according to Colton Chief Steve Ward.
But City Manager Rod Foster said he’ll only present the plan to the City Council if the city’s eight police dispatchers and their supervisor can keep a job.
“Staff will not support any potential regionalization effort of police dispatch that does not guarantee that current Colton dispatchers are provided with similar jobs in Fontana or within the potential of an expanded Colton PD records division,” Foster said.
Ward said he’s doing everything he can to get those dispatchers jobs in Fontana or another police department – with encouraging results – but he couldn’t pass up the chance to use the money on overdue expansions in other areas.
“Every dollar of the savings will go directly to support services and allow us to provide a more efficient service to the Colton community,” Ward said. “This will provide the people of Colton with seven-day animal control service, seven-day code enforcement coverage and add an administrative analyst to manage and obtain grants.”
Not that it’s an easy decision.
“I sleep fine, but
I’ve been staying up nights worrying about this,” Ward said. “These are longtime employees. Unfortunately, we need to save that money.”
The Colton City Council is scheduled to consider the plan in February, Foster said. Fontana’s City Council will also likely vote on the plan by then.
Longtime dispatchers said they appreciate Ward’s dilemma and the way he’s handled the plan as it develops, but that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it.
“The department’s handled it as well as it could,” said 24-year veteran Misty Kershner, who supervises the dispatchers. “But we’re not just machines that answer the phones. We know this city, and we know from an inflection in an officer’s voice when something is more serious.
“Nothing against Fontana, but in a larger department, you lose that.”
Fontana Police Chief Rod Jones is the first to agree.
“Any time you have a more regional approach, I think you do lose some of the more personal aspects,” Jones said.
But he said experienced dispatchers – whether they were trained in Fontana or Colton – would still pick up on some of that. And he said the agreement was part of a larger move toward regionalization.
“Our criminals don’t know borders,” he said. “This is the trend of the future. It’s not just dispatch. Because of the economy, because of realignment, we have to do more with less.”
Prison realignment refers to the new state policy that aims to relieve prison overcrowding by sending state inmates to county jails, leading some jails to release inmates early.
Fontana is also working on agreements to share its new helicopter with neighboring departments, and drug task forces have long combined several cities, Jones said.
This is one of many steps showing greater cooperation between agencies in the near future, Ward said, but there’s a limit to potential merging because different cities want different things from their police.
“I believe policing is different based on the community,” he said. “Still, dispatch is dispatch and animal control is animal control.”
Jones said he couldn’t guarantee any particular people would be hired, but he has received several applications from Colton dispatchers and they’re well qualified.
“Obviously they are experienced, and dispatchers are a very tough commodity to hire, because it’s a very high-stress position,” Jones said.
Fontana plans to add seven dispatchers and call-takers to the 26 it already has, he said.
Source:http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_19628082
