By: Diane Benjamin
Title to a story in a newsletter to all City Managers who are members of ICMA – both Bloomington and Normal are:
Santa Barbara Moves to Partner With County for Emergency Dispatch Services
Quote:
Santa Barbara hopes to save up to two minutes in response time by combining emergency dispatch services with the county to create one large regional center.
Ever since Bloomington left MetCom and started their own call center in 2006, people dialing 911 might have been connected to either center and then transferred to the other. That wastes precious time.
Minutes matter in an emergency. Santa Barbara knows that. Citizens know that. Yet there is no discussion of Bloomington going back to MetCom.
Meanwhile, taxpayers get to fund two locations, duplicate supervisors, and duplicate staff.
If anybody cared about saving time and money returning to MetCom would be a high priority. Next would be abolishing the Bloomington Election Commission. Taxpayers should not be forced to fund two operations for elections, especially when one of them isn’t run by an elected official that voters can hold accountable.
Bloomington and Normal could have partnered on an east side fire station too. They won’t, it’s easy to toss money to developers – not so easy to do the right thing. This faux pas means MILLIONS from taxpayers in both towns that wasn’t necessary.
Bloomington is the MetCom problem.
Bloomington is the Election Commission problem.
Which one can be blamed for the fire stations? Both?
It’s hard to believe that in this day and age a person under stress during an emergency is put on “hold” after calling 911 so Metcom can transfer the call to BPD.SECONDS COUNT, especially for medical emergencies, beatings, robberies, etc.This all came about because Bloomington said they had problems with Metcom. The solution they chose certainly wasn’t in the best interest of taxpayers.I’M LOCKED IN THE BATHROOM, MY BOYFRIEND HAS A KNIFE AND IS KICKING THE DOOR IN. PLEASE HELP. Please stay on the line while we transfer your call….. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
Bloomington and Normal will not partner because of EGOS. It has nothing to do with saving lives or taxpayers money. Both cities have problems with emergency response times in NE B/N. Until the administrators start considering citizens, instead of just growing government, no progress will be made. The 911 system, fire and police – No one cares who shows up when they need help, they just need help!
I have heard the problem is Normal refuses to work with Bloomington….Just look at the sports complex. Bloomington says they can’t afford yet Normal continues to force it.