Last fall, the Bangor City Council passed a resolve by a margin of 8-1 to officially request city staff to begin discussions of integrating our police, fire and EMS dispatching services with Penobscot County and the Penobscot Regional Communication Center (PRCC).
I was the single councilor who voted no.
I voted against the resolve because, in my opinion, the council had not been presented with enough data — neither statistical or financial — to make an informed decision. I felt we needed a more complete picture in order to do what is right for Bangor’s citizens and its public safety professionals.
Following the council vote, a citizen initiative successfully gathered enough signatures to send the question of integrating dispatch services to the voters. Therefore, on the Nov. 8 Bangor ballot, voters will be asked whether they wish Bangor to continue a stand-alone operation or explore integrating with PRCC.
Over the past 12 months, I have made it a personal priority to learn more about the operations, geography, quality, response time and financial side of the matter. And in doing so, I’ve been able to develop a more complete picture of the issue at hand.
There has been concern about physically moving the center away from the police station in Bangor. According to Google Maps, the distance between the current dispatch center and PRCC is one-third of a mile and both centers are in downtown Bangor.
To the point of operational competency, I have come to find Jim Ryan, PRCC’s director of operations, to be a skilled, experienced and highly efficient manager.
To the issue of wondering how many Bangor residents are employed by each, it turns out the ratio of Bangor residents, as a percentage of all employees, is the same in both centers.
I was curious as to the issue of phone calls being answered more or less promptly at PRCC as opposed to Bangor’s current operation, I found that all calls are logged into a sophisticated computerized system which offers a collection of quality and standards reporting. Reports show that the time differential between calls getting answered in Bangor’s center in relation to those at PRCC is a mere 1/100th of a second.
I also was concerned about PRCC’s standards and consistency in relation to Bangor’s operation. I was quite comforted to find that both Bangor’s police chief and the chairman of the Penobscot Fire Chiefs Association have been members of PRCC’s board of directors since its inception. For the majority of the time in which PRCC has existed, the chairman of the Penobscot Fire Chiefs Association has been the Bangor fire chief. This point is important to me as it means Bangor has had an integral role on the board of directors, which is directly involved in developing PRCC’s procedural and quality standards.
I have found that dispatch training is exactly the same and that PRCC and the city of Bangor work together in training dispatchers.
Research has shown me that from an operational, safety and security point of view, I can find no differences between the two communication centers.
With my questions of safety, quality of service, operational protocols and geography answered to my satisfaction, I then looked at the financial picture — the component that affects our taxes as citizens of Bangor.
The annual budget for PRCC comes from revenue generated through the receipt of county taxes. Every municipality in Penobscot Country pays according to a population formula. Revenue from Bangor taxpayers make up approximately 24 percent of PRCC’s annual budget.
Bangor is the only municipality in Penobscot County that does not use the services of PRCC. Bangor taxpayers are paying for two dispatch centers every year but only use one.
I have come to find that integrating our dispatch center with PRCC is financially prudent as it will save the taxpayers of Bangor over $200,000 each year. PRCC has also offered the opportunity of employment to each of Bangor’s existing dispatch employees.
On Oct. 12, I and seven fellow councilors voted to encourage a no vote on the referendum question that seeks to prevent Bangor from negotiating the possibility of the city joining the Penobscot Regional Communications Center with the employees’ union and Penobscot County.
Armed with facts and figures we did not have a year ago, I see that keeping Bangor’s stand-alone dispatch operating, as it is now, is an unnecessary and costly exercise for the taxpayers of Bangor.
I fully embrace the council’s decision to support a no vote on the referendum question and to allow the city to move forward with discussions to integrate Bangor’s emergency and nonemergency dispatch center to PRCC.
Cary Weston is a member of the Bangor City Council.