Wells gives 911 board project updates
In light of the St. Francois County 911 Board self-imposed delay on the purchase of a new Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system until the project can be re-bid, 911 Director Alan Wells gave board members a report on other action items either recently completed or still in progress.
The report was given by Wells when the 911 board met in regular session May 11 at Desloge City Hall.
At its April meeting, the board had approved a motion to reject all CAD system bids already submitted and authorized the director and staff to send out new Requests for Proposal (RFP). Following the vote, Wells told the board that he and the committee would be open to any new, as well as previous vendors, who can meet the requirements as set out in the new RFP.
“On the CAD, that is open at the time for discussion a little bit later here on the agenda,” Wells told the board. “We’ll be discussing it in executive session.”
Wells provided board members an update on staffing at the 911 center.
“Last month we reported that we had a retiree announcement, another who had to go out early on maternity leave/sick leave; and a third who resigned,” he said. “We have retained four new staff that are in training as we speak and they are progressing rather well. So, we should be back to staff level — a good optimum level — in probably another month. They’ll start coming out of their training program.”
Wells informed the board that the flyovers for the county’s Pictometry mapping project have been completed.
“They’re doing a process of quality control — reviewing the data — and we expect deliverables of that within three weeks,” he said. “While the deliverables should be in hand, there will still be some training that will be going on with that.”
He noted that work on the radio systems is ongoing.
“We’ve just finished repair of the field units,” he said. “It’s part of that project to help improve the communications initiative.”
Wells said the state is doing a study in St. Francois, Madison, Iron and Ste. Genevieve counties.
“They want to come to the table with us to look at some share of maybe some towering and so on and so forth to help improve their MOSWIN (Missouri State-Wide Interoperable Radio Network) — their statewide initiative,” he said. “They were scheduled to have that done last week. I have not heard anything from them yet.”
Wells added that because of the state and other issues, his goal to have the communications initiative completed by July will most likely be delayed.
“But I think it’s conducive for us to continue that with them to reduce our cost,” he said.
Wells reported continued progress on the 911 project.
“AT&T has developed their new technology and it is now coming out — available,” he said. “So, we’re kind of at a stall waiting for that to happen with them, but they are coming along and progressing with that. By the end of the year — towards the fall — we’re going to have to sit down and start getting through those negotiations with them on the new 911 systems, whether we stay contracting through them or we go out and contract independently on a 911 system. However, whatever we do has got to tie-in with their infrastructure. They are our primary telephone provider for our jurisdiction. We’re limited on what we can do there.”
Wells said the new system is called Next Generation 9-1-1 which will allow the 911 center to receive texting and VoIP (Voice over IP), as well as other new technologies when they become available.
As far as the space and building initiative, the director said, “We’re having communications with architects and I have a prepared RFQ (Request For Qualifications) ready to go out to all the architects I’ve been able to locate so far in the state — and a couple of them are in the county — and then meet with Mark Allen’s committee and look at those. They are to be returned to us by May 27.”
Wells also reported that renovations and painting of the 911 center’s antenna tower have been completed.
In the monthly summary of calls for service, the director reported there was an average of 325 calls per day for a total of 9,742 for the month. Of that total there were 3,252 911 calls; 8,999 administrative calls and 194 office calls.
“We have retained four new staff that are in training as we speak and they are progressing rather well.” — 911 Director Alan Wells
Renovations and painting of the 911 center antenna have been completed, according to 911 Director Alan Wells who reported on the project May 11 at the monthly St. Francois County 911 Board meeting.
St. Francois County 911 Director Alan Wells, far right, tells members of the St. Francois County 911 Board about the improved staffing situation at the center. There are currently four new employees in dispatcher training and two of them have previous 911 experience.
Kevin Jenkins is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-518-3614 or kjenkins@dailyjournalonline.com
