County Commissioners approve dispatch center change

The Lake County Commissioners voted unanimously to separate the county’s Emergency Dispatch Center from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office April 12 despite the opposition of Sheriff Don Bell.

Commissioners began the process to make the move in January when Commissioner Bill Barron introduced a resolution outlining his intention to separate the center from the Sheriff’s Office, something Barron said will make no difference in response time or service to the community. 

Bell does not agree with the split unless it receives direct approval from Lake County voters. Bell made his message clear when asked his position on the issue before public comment was heard at the April 12 commissioners meeting.

 “I take this job very seriously,” Bell said. “The people elected me to do this job. And I have a hard time letting it go if the people didn’t say so. If the people want it, then I will stand behind it. It’s an election year. Let the people decide.”

Bell then addressed Barron directly. 

“You are responsible to represent the voters just like I am. I believe we should put it to the people,” Bell said.

Barron acknowledged his responsibility to voters but said he believes that those who elected him did it knowing Barron’s job was to make government run as efficiently as possible.

“If we put everything to the voters, we wouldn’t get very much done,” Barron said.

Some attendees of the April 12 meeting did not want the decision to wait any longer. Darlene Lester, 911 supervisor, said voters knew the public hearing was taking place, and that if they were opposed to the separation they should have been present to speak up. Lester said the 911 office unanimously agreed with Barron’s suggested separation.

With Barron’s resolution to move the emergency call center from the sheriff’s authority to that of the Office of Emergency Management, the dispatch center would answer to the OEM director, currently Steve Stanley. Although both offices receive funding from the county, the sheriff is an independent elected official whereas the director of the Office of Emergency Management is appointed by the commissioners. 

Community member Norm Johnson said that the people of Lake County should decide which of the two agencies should oversee the emergency center.

Throughoutthe meeting, Bell politely disagreed with many of the specific arguments made by Barron.

Barron asserted that the Lake County sheriff’s captain who runs the call center now is paid more than the Office of Emergency Management manager who will take over when the split is completed, which means the switch would save money. Bell said his captain does not make more money annually than the OEM manager, but that overtime might result in a slightly larger salary for the captain. Neither man presented any numbers to support their claims.

Barron said that the separation would create more stability for the call center because the elected sheriff would not have the ability to come into office and change things every four years. Bell and Lake County Commissioner Gale Decker noted that commissioners were elected as well, turned over, and come into office with their own ideas.

Barron said the move would create added stability to the center, although details of how the oversight committee will be appointed were “not ironed out.”

Audience member Becky DePoe said she served as Emergency Dispatch Center supervisor for 23 years and helped oversee the department at a critical time when Barron was Lake County sheriff.

DePoe said that when the same subject arose during Barron’s term, he was opposed to the move. Now, DePoe wanted to know why his opinion changed.

Barron said his position on the matter changed after he spent his first term as sheriff during the early 2000s.

“When I started as sheriff, I felt the same way Don (Bell) does,” Barron told the Leader after the meeting. Barron said that at first, he thought those who suggested the change were saying that he wasn’t doing his job, “but by the time I was done with my first term as sheriff, I was actively trying to move dispatch.”

That move took 10 years.

Barron said that after he was elected as Lake County Commissioner in 2008, most of his time was swallowed up by the Skyline Road project and he couldn’t devote his full attention to the emergency call center until 2012.

Working with volunteers and scheduling in meetings was another time-consuming process, Barron said.

He said that in 2013 he helped establish an interim 911 Call Center Advisory Board made up of members from various emergency departments in Lake County, something the law mandated. 

The interim board consists of about seven members representing the tribes, cities, fire and emergency responders as well as the Lake County sheriff, Barron said. 

He cited continuity as a reason for the change in administration. He noted that the Lake County Sheriff has changed four times in the last five years. Each new sheriff ushered into office came with his own ideas about how to run the department, which caused great upheaval, Barron said.

Getting the new emergency call center leadership board in place will take some time, Barron said.

The first formal step to moving the call center was the commissioners’ January resolution to publicize their intent to move the center. The April 12 vote was to draft another resolution that calls for action to officially move the call center. Signing that document, Barron said, is a technicality that will complete the process.

Before the new board can be assembled, Barron said some other technicalities need to occur. One detail is the changing of budgeting codes that switch the money now directed to the Sheriff’s Office over to the Office of Emergency Management. In addition, wording must be changed in the dispatchers’ union contract, he said.

Then, the new 911 board members will be appointed by each of the entities represented. Barron said that though the details are not completely ironed out, the board will include representation from the Tribes, cities, each emergency service organization and citizens, and it will remain an advisory board that will answer to the Office of Emergency Management.

Barron said nothing will change for dispatchers themselves other than titles; instead of calling the sheriff “boss,” they will call the OEM director “boss.”

The move is expected to be completed July 1. 

Barron said that moving the emergency dispatch center is not an indictment on how Bell is doing his job.

“Don is a professional. He knows my side. He knows it’s not personal. He wasn’t shirking his responsibility by having this happen,” Barron said.

Bell defeating three other Republican candidates in the June 2014 primary, and ran unopposed by Democrats in November 2014. He began serving as sheriff on Jan. 1, 2015. Prior to his election as sheriff,  Bell served 22 years as a Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribal police officer.