County expects new 911 system [Columbiana Co, OH]

[yfdgricker]

Salem fails to submit data for enhanced 911
Story from the Youngstown Vindicator on 11/29/2006.

It is likely the city already has the information that was supposed to be delivered in July.

By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU

LISBON — Salem hasn't submitted information on its boundaries to the technical advisory committee that is creating enhanced 911 service in Columbiana County.

The committee revealed Tuesday that Salem is the only city in the county that hasn't submitted information.

The villages of Salineville and Summitville, and Franklin and Center townships, are the only other subdivisions that haven't submitted information.

The committee asked fire departments in April to begin to check and submit the information. The committee had originally hoped to get the guide completed and have enhanced 911 service up and running by the end of this year.

A "master street address" guide will determine the exact boundaries that will be used to route calls to one of five answering points in county. Salem is one of those points.

What it means

"Enhanced" 911 means that the caller's location will appear on a screen at the answering points, which are all law enforcement agencies.

Commissioner Gary Williams, who has been spearheading the project for the commissioners, said he didn't know why Salem hadn't submitted the information.

Salem Police Lt. Don Beeson is the city's representative on the committee. He said a letter from the committee had been sent to the city asking for the information. He wasn't sure to whom the letter was sent.

Beeson noted that at the last committee meeting, 911 director Robert Emmons said he would help any subdivisions that hadn't completed their survey.

City Safety Director Scott Cranmer said he would look into the problem. He said the letter may have gone to another official, such as Service Director Joe Julian.

Fire Chief Walt Greenamyer could not be reached.

It is likely that Salem already has the information. Salem's planning and zoning office keeps detailed information on the city's boundaries and notifies both the fire and police departments of any changes.

In return for being an answering point, Salem has had a new dispatcher's office built in city hall.

New cabinets OK'd

In other action, the committee approved new cabinets that will house and cool computers for the system at a cost of $15,000.

But the committee held off action on other spending, such as for computer assisted dispatching, for the sites. When an emergency call is made, CAD would provide information to the dispatcher on any previous calls at that address.

East Palestine already has CAD. But Williams warned that the committee has already spent close to its present limits. More revenue will be created later through fees on land lines.

Other fees are being generated on cell phones. Those fees will finance a program that will show dispatchers the location of calls made from cell phones.

It was Williams' last committee meeting as a commissioner. He was defeated by Daniel T. Bing, who was at the meeting and may replace Williams on the committee.

Williams said he would like to continue helping with the project and may be appointed as a citizen representative to the committee that will meet again in late January.

wilkinson@vindy.com

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Salem finishes data for new 911
Story from the Youngstown Vindicator on 12/1/2006.

Salem officials aren't sure why they were unaware of the information request.

By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU

SALEM — The city has completed its delayed list of streets needed to help enact Columbiana County's enhanced 911 service.

Columbiana County officials working to enact the system had said Tuesday that Salem was the only city in the county that hadn't submitted the information.

"It's done," Patrick D. Morrissey, the city's housing, planning and zoning officer said Thursday. "It was done yesterday."

Morrissey said he "burned the midnight oil" to update the city's information.

Morrissey regularly tracks growth and development. For the 911 plan, he had to add several new streets and their house numbers to the existing list of city streets. They were mostly from the Bricker Farms property that was annexed to the city from Perry Township for housing construction.

Morrissey said the additions bring the number of streets to 180. He said he was surprised the city had that many streets.

Master guide

The information will go into a Master Street Address Guide that will be computerized. Five answering points throughout the county will take calls from designated areas. When a call is made, the caller's address will appear on a computer screen.

It wasn't clear how the request made by the 911 technical advisory committee got lost.

"If someone here got it, I've never seen it," Morrissey said.

County Commissioner Gary Williams, who oversees the project, said letters to fire chiefs asking that their departments check their boundaries were given out at a meeting of the county fire chiefs' association months ago. Williams didn't recall if Salem Fire Chief Walt Greenamyer was present. Greenamyer is also a member of the technical advisory committee but hasn't attended regularly. The fire chief was not available to comment.

Salem Police Lt. Don Beeson is also a member of the technical advisory committee who has attended regularly. Beeson knew of the letter but wasn't aware of where it was sent.

Dispatch centers

The committee meetings have focused mostly on creating the dispatch centers at five police departments, including Salem. The committee had hoped to have the program for all land lines completed by the end of this year.

City Service Director Joseph Julian said he did not know about the problem until contacted by Safety Director Scott Cranmer, who had been contacted by The Vindicator.

Julian said he has worked with Robert Emmons of Chardon, the director hired by the committee to oversee the project, about developing the answering center in city hall.

Emmons was at the Salem dispatching center about a month ago but the street guide wasn't mentioned, Julian said.

Emmons couldn't be reached.

wilkinson@vindy.com

[yfdgricker]

911 calls missing the mark
Story by DEANNE JOHNSON, Journal Staff Writer on 3/13/2007.

SALEM — Enhanced 911 is expected to help response times across the county. While the much-anticipated service is on the way, some firefighters warn even the basic 911 is not working properly everywhere currently.

Doug Jarvis, assistant fire chief for North Georgetown, said the 911 service is not working in the North Georgetown and Homeworth areas, which has caused problems in responding to calls.

Recent calls to 911 are being routed to an operator instead of to the fire departments or the sheriff’s department where help can be found. The response time has been as long as 20 minutes, according to Jarvis, which is unacceptable, but not the fault of firefighters.

In one case for a Homeworth Fire Department call, a woman needed medical attention serious enough to need emergency helicopter transportation. But she waited a long time for initial help to arrive, because the call was not properly routed.

Jarvis said it is frustrating when family members arrive at an accident and find emergency crews have not yet arrived to help their loved ones. He said if it were his family, he would be upset also.

On a recent test call Jarvis himself made to 911, he said he got an operator like someone would expect when they called zero. The operator was reportedly confused as to how the call got to her. She told him to hang up and call his local emergency number or 911.

Calls using 911 intended for Homeworth’s fire department are reportedly being sometimes received by North Georgetown’s dispatch. Jarvis said they send a truck and contact Homeworth directly, but it can slow the response time.

Bob Emmons, county 911 director, is working hard on the problem, Jarvis said. He believes the system will soon be up and running. But until the system can be fixed, at least so all land-line 911 calls go directly to the sheriff’s department to be professionally routed, Jarvis suggests residents call their emergency numbers directly.

The emergency lines are 525-7222 for North Georgetown firefighters and 525-7611 for Homeworth firefighters. Those numbers also can be used for the departments’ first responders units and they will in turn contact ambulance help.

Calls for police emergencies should be made directly to the sheriff’s department, 424-7255.

Jarvis said firefighters believe Emmons will be able to fix the problem and 911 will be available very soon. But in the meantime firefighters at the two departments have big concerns about the safety of residents using the system in the northwest portion of the county.

djohnson@mojonews.com

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Area Enhanced 911 plan waits on program
Story By D.A. WILKINSON from the Youngstown Vindicator on 9/10/2007.

Some 4,000 phone numbers have to be redirected.

LISBON — Enactment of Columbiana County's Enhanced 911 emergency telephone plan has hit another snag: the current basic 911 service.

The problem affects only phones in Columbiana.

Robert Emmons, the county's 911 director, said Friday that it affects about 4,000 customers. That's 4,000 of about 35,000 land lines in the county.

The Enhanced 911 program is about one year behind schedule because of delays by subdivisions in presenting information on boundaries that will direct calls to five answering points when the system is completed. E-911 will automatically show a dispatcher the caller's address, even if the caller can't speak; basic 911 does not have the address feature.

When completed, the county sheriff's office and Salem, Columbiana, East Palestine and East Liverpool will handle calls for specific areas.

Emmons said that he hopes to get information from AT&T soon on a possible computer program that could streamline a solution.

The county essentially needs a computer program to search and replace the name "Columbiana" in AT&T's records.

If such a solution can be made, only 150 phone numbers would remain to be classified within the system to get it up and running.

Without a program, it could take up to six months to redo the information by hand.

History

Basic 911 service was started in the county about 10 years ago. Columbiana, East Liverpool, East Palestine and the county sheriff's office answered calls.

The city of Columbiana is in both Mahoning and Columbiana counties.

When the basic system was started, AT&T designated each telephone routed to Columbiana.

In AT&T's records, the name "Columbiana" — for the city — was entered in the location field to route calls to city safety forces.

Under the Enhanced 911 program, the name "Columbiana" — the county — is being entered in the AT&T's records under the "community" field.

Almost everything else for the system is in place, Emmons said.

East Palestine is completing its move into its new dispatching center.

Under the new system, AT&T will oversee the addition and deletion of phone numbers.

AT&T has said it wants 99 percent of the numbers correct before the system starts.

wilkinson@vindy.com

[yfdgricker]

Columbiana to Launch 911 Service
Story from the WFMJ TV21 Web Site on 5/25/2008.

After years of waiting, Columbiana County has set a date to begin 911 emergency telephone service.

EMA officials tells 21 News that they have set September 11th, at 9:11 AM to begin offering the service county wide.

The system is currently being tested.

It will only be available to land lines, and not cellular phones. Five regional centers will handle emergency calls.

[Hazguy]

It's not hard to figure out four of the centers, If I could hazard a guess:

Columbiana, Salem, Lisbon, and E Liverpool.

I don't know western Columbiana Co well enough to guess if there will be one out that way.

[W8YSU]

The centers will be:

Columbiana, Salem, Sheriff's,  E. Palestine, and E Liverpool.

Libson does not have a Dispatch Department.


W8YSU

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Salem move could hurt 911
Story by TOM GIAMBRONI/Journal Staff Writer on 7/3/2008.

LISBON - Countywide enhanced 911 service is still months away from becoming a reality and officials from one of the communities serving as a dispatching center are interested in contracting out the service.

Columbiana County 911 Director Robert Emmons was surprised to learn Salem officials had approached the county sheriff about taking over the city's dispatching duties.

"That would certainly throw a big monkey wrench into the works," Emmons said, after being contacted by the Morning Journal on Wednesday, the same day a story was published about Salem dispatchers questioning whether city officials had met with Sheriff David Smith to discuss the issue.

Smith confirmed he recently met with Mayor Jerry Wolford, Assistant Safety/Service Director Greg Oesch and a third Salem official he was unable to identify, who approached him about having the sheriff's office take over dispatching duties for the Salem safety forces. He said the Salem officials were interested if the sheriff's office could do it and how much it might cost because they were wanting to save money.

"Everyone wants to get out of the dispatching business and police business. It's expensive," he said.

Smith said they never got around to discussing whether they preferred keeping the Salem dispatching center open under such a scenario or combine dispatching at the sheriff's office. "They just asked if I would consider dispatching," said Smith.

Contracting with the sheriff for dispatching services is not uncommon. The sheriff's office has contracts to provide dispatching services for some volunteer fire departments, and has done likewise for smaller police departments, too. But Smith said he would need to hire additional staff to do the same for a city of 12,000 residents.

Complicating the issue is the fact that under the countywide E-911 plan, currently scheduled to go online Sept. 11, Salem is one of the five places to serve as dispatching centers through which calls will be routed. The others are East Liverpool, East Palestine, Columbiana and the sheriff's office. Each community would answer calls within their geographic area, with the sheriff handling the rest.

Emmons said if Salem were to drop out, the technology allows for the calls to go through the sheriff's office. "We could certainly redirect those calls to the sheriff's office, but they don't have enough equipment to handle the calls, or the staff," he said.

Commissioner Dan Bing, who is chairman of the county 911 advisory committee, was also caught off guard by the news and plans to contact Salem City Council President Tod Mumpire since council is the one that voted to serve as a dispatching center.

"I wouldn't be happy about it," he said about Salem wanting to contract with the sheriff's office. "I don't know if it would delay 911."

Then there is the issue of how much money has been spent by the 911 committee to upgrade each of the dispatching centers, with the average being $20,000. A Morning Journal review of records indicated $13,000 alone has been spent on equipment for Salem, plus whatever went for renovations.

"We already paid for a lot of equipment up there," Bing said.

There is no indication yet whether the idea of transferring dispatching duties has the support of the Salem police and fire chiefs, both of whom are members of the 911 committee. After the meeting with Salem officials, Sheriff Smith contacted Police Chief Robert Floor. And what was Floor's reaction to the proposal? "You'd have to ask him," he said.

Smith pointed out one of the reasons they went with five dispatching centers is because the communities, including Salem, wanted to continue handling their own calls. "The 911 issue would've never been put on the ballot if these communities hadn't been guaranteed they would have 911 dispatching in their communities," he said.

Personnel cost is another reason officials chose to go with the multiple dispatching center concept instead of one single 911 center serving the entire county. The belief is E-911 won't result in any significant increase in calls for any one dispatching center, so there should be no need to hire additional dispatchers.

But Salem officials expressed concern about dispatching costs as far back as 2003, and in 2005 those serving as dispatching centers were asked to pass new resolutions of commitment after it was learned some were having second thoughts about serving as dispatching centers because their communities were having financial problems.

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Portion of 911 system for Columbiana set to begin Sept. 11
Story from the Youngstown Vindicator on 8/26/2008.

LISBON — Five years after voters approved a measure to enact enhanced 911 phone service in Columbiana, part of the system is set to start Sept. 11.

The start date was picked to salute emergency workers, including those who died in terrorist attacks on the United States on that date in 2001.

Columbiana will become the 85th out of the state’s 88 counties to have countywide 911 service, said Robert Emmons, the county’s 911 director who has been overseeing the project.

The U.S. Census has estimated the county has about 110,542 residents.

The remaining other three counties without the service, Monroe, Meigs, and Noble counties, are much smaller, Emmons said.

Officials at Columbiana County’s Technical Advisory Committee today said the start may be a pre-arranged call into the county commissioner’s office.