Will New Berlin dispatch or be dispatched?

New Berlin - In search of potential savings, both in terms of operational and capital costs, the city has hired a consultant to look into whether New Berlin might be better off if the Waukesha Communications Center answer fire and police calls.

If the city joins WCC, Waukesha County dispatchers would send New Berlin police and firefighters where they need to be instead of emergency dispatchers at the New Berlin Police Station.

The consultant, Springsted Inc. of Milwaukee, will present its findings in late March or early April.

Studying costs vs. service

The city has 12 dispatchers on the payroll, and its communications equipment needs to be replaced, said Police Chief Joe Rieder. The equipment alone goes for $250,000 to $500,000, and even more, he said. Also, the dispatch center itself is worn and needs retuning probably to the tune of $75,000 or $100,000.

Those numbers factor into the city's decision to study an alternative, Rieder said.

But Springsted was also asked to go beyond numbers to evaluate response times and feedback from police and fire departments that already use WCC as well as citizen satisfaction. There are advantages to having local dispatch but there are disadvantages, too, Rieder said, and the consultant is to look into all of that.

Seven years ago when WCC was built, service was the huge issue, Rieder said, with many insisting that local dispatch is much better. But now WCC has seven years of dat,a and a decision can be made with facts, he added.

Once the research is in, the Police and Fire Commission, which asked for the study, will invite the public to weigh in.

Factual, emotional resistance

"This is a huge issue and a very emotional issue," he acknowledged.

People view dispatchers as their lifelines - when they call for help, it's a dispatcher who will be on the line, Rieder said.

One of those who will not be shy about commenting on the issue is Jeanne Bartol, who some time ago spearheaded a massive fundraising campaign to get a defibrillator into every New Berlin police squad car.

To be effective, defibrillators must be used within moments of someone having a heart attack. They are fine with New Berlin's response time of one to three minutes, but if times get much longer, she said, "We're going to lose lives."

What Bartol said she will be asking is what means the most: saving lives or saving money.

She acknowledged that she has a more personal reason for wanting continued rapid police response times. Years ago, she was instrumental in securing the conviction of a man who robbed several pharmacies. He was sentenced to 10 years. But he recently got out after five years and Bartol knows that he knows where she lives, and she doesn't mind saying she's worried.

Too many call transfers

Based on three recent experiences she had with WCC, it take some effort to convince her that the change is for the better.

One was a nonemergency call to Brookfield police in which her call was given to the wrong city three times, Bartol said.

Another time, while driving, she called to report seeing an impaired driver. She spotted him in Milwaukee but then he entered Greenfield, so she was transferred to Greenfield, then to West Allis as they drove into that city and finally to New Berlin, which caught the driver.

In another incident while she was driving, she called police after seeing a 3-year-old child hanging out a car window. Her 911 call was transferred to two different police departments and finally to the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department.

The fact that she was on the move in her own car was a factor in some of the call transfers.

"She brings up good points," Rieder said, acknowledging such transferring does happen.

But if she had been in Waukesha County and all the communities on her route had been with WCC, there would have been no need for transfers and the WCC dispatchers would have known which squads were in a position to stop the offending cars. All that information would be in one place, he said.

While New Berlin is exploring joining WCC, Muskego is trying hard to get out of it. Muskego police say they can handle the 911 cell calls, the only ones WCC answers for them, themselves. Muskego doesn't want callers to have to talk to the WCC dispatcher and the Muskego dispatcher when one will do.