Police dispatch moves to new location

An agreement between Okaloosa County and the city of Crestview signed last summer has brought to fruition a new dispatch center for the Crestview Police Department. Last week, a bevy of city and county workers and contractors moved dispatchers and their equipment into the former county dispatch center on P.J. Adams Parkway.

When county Emergency Operations Services moved to its new center on the Northwest Florida State College campus earlier in 2011, a clause in the contract with the city returned the building to Crestview.

The police dispatch center’s move from the formerly cramped quarters it shared with Crestview Fire Department dispatchers helped alleviate crowding in the Woodruff Avenue public safety building’s 320-square-foot facility. The Woodruff center, once shared by upwards of five dispatchers, remains the home of the fire department’s dispatch center.

Each center now provides backup should the other center become inoperable due to a natural or man-made disaster.

The county offered to pay the monthly $921.21 bill for the 911 trunk line serving the P.J. Adams location as long as it occupies the building, plus more than $9,000 to split the line serving the Woodruff facility and add 911 service to the P.J. Adams building.

The county also gave the city the furniture in the center, including dispatch consoles valued at $30,000 that were quickly it up and manned by police dispatchers. A county ambulance was also stationed at the building, providing service to southwest Crestview. The city, in return, pays the building’s electrical bill and maintains the backup generator.

Dispatcher Donna Barbera said Motorola technicians from First Communications moved the dispatchers and their work station equipment one at a time so 911 service was not interrupted during the transfer to the new facility.

“They literally came in while we were working, and all these guys started pulling cables,” Barbera said. “It was well orchestrated. There was dust flying everywhere but it was kind of interesting.”

As First Communications technician George Lee strung cables behind the consoles and brought the third and fourth workstations on line, Barbera and her daytime shift colleague, Jodie Hooper, took calls from citizens. Until the center was fully operational, the women used portable radios to dispatch police officers to accident or crime scenes.

Despite the buzz of activity in their new home, the veterans coolly trained Keisa Davis, their new night shift colleague. The dispatchers agreed their new center, which is more than 600 square feet in area, and its furnishings greatly enhance their work environment.

“We’ve got some room to walk around,” Barbera said. “That’s nice, too.”