By: Diane Benjamin
In 2014 the Bloomington City Council heard the results of a study they commissioned to exam the 911 system. See the report here:
PDF page 17: https://www.cityblm.org/home/showdocument?id=7555
The purpose of the report:
The report is extensive and may or may not still reflect reality. Recommendations for future updates are included, I don’t know if any have been completed. It appears that in 2014 Bloomington had a state-of-the-art system while Metcom did not. (Of course Bloomington paid for the report) Metcom also did not have the space needed to consolidate with Bloomington. Because of the summary below the City Council did not move forward with a consolidation: (PDF page 37)
The reason for this story is to look at how many 911 calls are routed to the wrong dispatch center.
When a call is made to 911 in McLean County it may be answered by Metcom or by Bloomington. If it isn’t answered by the right dispatcher, the call needs to be transferred.
On PDF page 36 reference is made to consolidating virtually through technology. I have no idea where that process stands or if it is being pursued.
I filed a FOIA request with both the County and Bloomington for the number of calls transferred.
The County didn’t have a problem supplying that information:
When minutes, if not seconds matter in an emergency – that’s a lot of calls.
What I received from Bloomington isn’t as clear: 2018_Call_Count_by_Month_per_Xfer_Conf_Target[1]_Redacted
The second page appears to show only 298 calls were transferred to Metcom from the Bloomington dispatch center.
With a lot of people only using cell phones now, technology may not be keeping up. Obviously the volume of calls Metcom receives in error means location service wasn’t working well enough in 2018.
When calling 911 is the first thing you need to ask “Which dispatch center did I reach?”
It shouldn’t be.
The Bloomington City Council members not familiar with the report should read it and ask for updates. I don’t think a clear explanation of why the recent extended outage occurred has been given either.
The report has some other recommendations and information on increasing revenue (taxes). I hope nobody gets any ideas from it.
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Until the public wakes up to this problem and votes these leftists Progressive clowns on the city council out of office this kind of lame service of transferring and rerouting 911 emergency calls creating an unsafe environment will continue because they don’t care! It’s ALL about THEIR agenda to destroy America city by city!!!
I think on a local level I think it’s more about their personal power trips. They gladly accept support from others who perhaps Do have an agenda to destroy America, becoming willing pawns of a sort.
Sort of a variation on ‘Don’t attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.’
You’re asking a lot when you suggest that Bloomington City Council Aldermen read a report. Perhaps at these meet and greet sessions, along with public comment at Council meetings, they should be asked if they know how.
I was just in Subway in downtown Bloomington. They are closing. Said not enough business with State farm gone.
Sad, I didn’t know there was one
It is incredibly annoying calling into 911. Twice this year I’ve had to call for vehicle crashes (bad luck, I know). Both times the first question I was asked was “Are you calling for the Town of Normal or City of Bloomingtion?”
It’s ridiculous.
Everything the “smart people” get their fingers on they muck it up either by simply being incompetent or, as has been stated, by design. Either way, people are negatively affected.
Oh speaking of 911, they are now in the process of consolidating small town volunteer fire departments as well, rather like they did small town schools. What could possibly go wrong…
When you make a 911 call from a cell phone, it automatically goes to McLean county, If you live in Bloomington simply say Bloomington dispatch.