06/16/06
Emergency 9-1-1 call center moving closer to South Portland
Some time between now and October 2007, Cape Elizabeth 9-1-1 emergency calls
will be answered in South Portland.
The Town Council on June 12 approved a request to seek approval from the
Maine Public Utilities Commission to merge South Portland and Cape Elizabeth's
Public Safety Answering Point services to one location - South Portland.
The request for the South Portland location represents one of the local steps
in a statewide effort to reduce the number of PSAPs in Maine from 48 to 24
or 16.
The request is also a departure from an earlier proposal to merge emergency
calls from Cape Elizabeth, South Portland and Scarborough into one PSAP location.
Instead, the communities of Cape Elizabeth and South Portland are seeking
one PSAP, and Scarborough and Old Orchard Beach are requesting another to
be located in Scarborough.
"We feel it's a great marriage," said Police Chief Neil Williams, of the
plan to have Cape Elizabeth 9-1-1 calls answered in South Portland.
South Portland has long shared resources with neighboring Cape Elizabeth
and there is already a close working relationship. However, since the first
recommendation was made to include Scarborough, Old Orchard Beach has sought
to contract with Scarborough as a PSAP and for full public safety dispatching.
"These two regional approaches are different and require different approaches
and one PSAP could not possibly accommodate the varying demands at this time,"
according to a letter to the MPUC signed by officials of all four communities.
Under the agreement, Cape Elizabeth would reimburse South Portland for its
PSAP services at a rate of $1 per capita, or $9,100, an amount already budgeted
for in 2006-2007.
At the same time the council approved the request to send 9-1-1 calls to
South Portland, it also voted to establish a staff committee to review options
for consolidating all of the dispatch functions for South Portland and Cape
Elizabeth.
The committee will include the fire chiefs and the chiefs of police from
Cape Elizabeth and South Portland; and two dispatchers from each community.
Although the second move toward shared dispatch services addresses the governor's
call for regionalization, cost-containment and increased efficiency, there
has been little support of the idea in Cape Elizabeth. In April 2004, Town
councilors accepted staff recommendations that police dispatch not merge
with South Portland's. At the June 13, 2006 meeting, Town Councilor Michael
Mowles echoed some of the same feelings.
"I will vote for the motion, but I am not necessarily in favor of consolidating
dispatch," said Mowles, asking that the committee come back with estimates
of cost-savings. "There may be a cost worth paying for the level of service
we get with our in-town dispatchers," Mowles said.
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