CITY OF LOCKPORT: Eggert proposes LPD monitoring of fire calls

By Joyce Miles<br><a href="mailto:joyce.miles@lockportjournal.com">E-mail Joyce</a>

Lockport Police Department is ready, willing and able to take over city fire communication duties any time, Police Chief Larry Eggert said this week.

By the terms of the five-year labor agreement it struck with the firefighters union last month, the city can observe minimum fire shift staffing of nine men, not 10, as long as it executes the transfer of fire dispatch duties to another agency within six months.

The alternative agencies under consideration are Niagara County central dispatch and LPD. The latter has always been Mayor Michael Tucker’s preference, and it may be emerging as the majority preference of the Common Council, as well. The way Eggert explained it to the aldermen, LPD can take on fire communication duties faster, at less cost and with better “customer service” by officers who know the city’s streets and residents.

“I don’t think there’s a downside,” Eggert said. “I’m kind of hoping you give it to us. (Compared with Niagara County) we can do it for virtually zero additional cost and help the city generate huge savings. I’m a taxpayer here, too, so I appreciate that.”

Having the LPD radio room handle fire dispatch would require no additional infrastructure investments, since Lockport Fire Department’s radio systems are already housed there, Eggert said.

LPD already takes all incoming 911 calls in the city and directs them to the fire house as needed. To handle the remainder of fire dispatch work — fielding calls placed directly to the fire house, keeping track of firefighters and vehicles and calling in firefighters as needed — would create some additional work for police officers, but not enough to be burdensome, he said. LPD dispatches about 25,000 to 30,000 calls per year now; taking on the fire department’s average 3,100 calls per year adds 10 percent to total volume “but no more (police) manpower would be required,” he said.

Det. Lt. Rick Podgers, one of LPD’s in-house communication experts, recently managed radio room computer upgrades with acceptance of fire dispatch duty in mind, Eggert added.

“We can do it tomorrow, essentially,” he said.

Debate about whether and where to send fire dispatch work has emerged periodically within the Council since 2005. Alderman at Large Joe Kibler and two former aldermen, Phyllis Green and Pat Schrader, always argued the work should be sent to Niagara County, since residents help pay for the countywide service through county property taxes and/or special phone taxes.

There are start-up costs involved with transferring dispatch to the county, however, including cable line installation and rental, communication equipment in the fire house. It’s also possible the city could be charged a fee by the county, since the phone tax-fed E911 fund that originally covered central dispatch costs is drying up. Some of the fund was taken by the state last year to help stanch the budget deficit, Eggert said; and separately, County Manager Greg Lewis reportedly suggested all municipalities using central dispatch should be assessed a share of the operating costs.

The “bill” down the road has been Tucker’s major concern about central dispatch all along, he said. The county previously declined to put any guarantees in writing that the now-“free” service would remain so.

Also, county-central dispatch can add a layer of bureaucracy in city emergency response operations. Were it the fire dispatcher, city police still would take the landline-based 911 calls first and transfer fire calls to the county’s communication center on Old Niagara Road. The county would then summon fire response — which is based next door to the police. New aldermen Ken Genewick and Andy Chapman suggested that extra step seems silly.

Kibler finds himself agreeing, especially now that he’s hearing Eggert say LPD can take fire calls “for free.”

“I’m wondering why we didn’t do this years ago. ... If not for the turf wars between departments, maybe we would have,” he said. “I still want more information about the county and its costs, but if it’s true (LPD) can do this tomorrow and at no cost, I’d rather see everything stay right here.”

LPD did, in fact, take on fire dispatch duties, on an as-needed basis, for a brief period in 2006-07. The deal was police would dispatch fire calls whenever the firefighter assigned to dispatch duty was needed to go out on a fire call; using the dispatcher was a way to reduce the overtime charges incurred by calling in an off-duty firefighter. When former Police Chief Neil Merritt abruptly pulled the police department out of the mix after seven months, aldermen at the time said he resented the arrangement.

That wouldn’t happen again, Eggert promised.

“This will work,” he said of an LPD communication takeover, “and there will be no giving it back.”

Before handing off the duty to anyone, Tucker said, he wants an update from county officials regarding costs tied to central dispatch.

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