DANVERS — By June there should be a plan on how to tackle the communications center space crunch in the Police Department, Selectman Michael Powers told the board yesterday.
Powers sits on a separate committee studying what to do about the aging public safety communication center infrastructure at the police station on Ash Street.
The question remains whether it would be worthwhile to expand the police station, which sits on a site with plenty of room to accommodate an addition, or find a way to share emergency communications with another community.
The center's inadequacies were highlighted by the November 2006 blast at the CAI/Arnel ink and paint plant in Danversport, when calls flooded the center and dispatchers had trouble fielding so many calls in such a tight space.
The debate about what to do is complicated by the construction at Middleton Jail of the Essex County Regional Emergency Communications Center, a regional dispatch center selectmen have opted not to join out of concerns about bureaucracy and cost.
The town approached the state about creating a regional dispatch center with Salem and Marblehead, but the state turned the request down, given its commitment to the regional effort in Middleton, Powers said.
"I hope they are successful," said Selectman Keith Lucy, an opponent of the large regional center, but a proponent of smaller, regional collaborations. "I don't see that in the short term or the long term."
Town Meeting has already approved money for a feasibility study for the communications center, Powers said.
Police Chief Neil Ouellette said the center his department oversees suffers from a hodgepodge of equipment, making it difficult for dispatchers to find information. The lack of room often means dispatchers cannot hear when they answer a police and fire call at the same time.
"They are jailed in that center for 16 hours," said Ouellette, who said there isn't room for someone to take a break and still hear a call. Two civilian dispatchers are on at all times, one handling police, the other handling fire calls.
Another concern is the basement, where networking and communications equipment sit under water pipes. Groundwater flooding two years ago made officials realize they had a problem.
Dispatch in the police department dates back to the 1970s, and while it has functioned well, the last major purchase of equipment was in 1997, Powers said.
Selectman Bill Clark said the center was not built to have both police and fire dispatch in one location.
In the short term, Powers said, the town will move to comply with Federal Communications Commission's requirements that public safety move to a narrow bandwidth for its broadcasts. Town Meeting will likely see a $50,000 request to buy equipment to meet this requirement, which would mean the purchase of equipment and the reprogramming of radios.
Staff writer Ethan Forman can be reached at 978-338-2673 or by email at eforman@salemnews.com or on Twitter @DanverSalemNews.
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