Minnesota State Patrol Districts merging

[kb0vkt]

I just thought i would put this out there that the state is planning on consolidating its state patrol
districts. Here is an article from the detroit lakes newspaper.
Published September 11 2009

Detroit Lakes State Patrol dispatch center moving to Duluth

Barring some unforeseen change of plan, the State Patrol dispatch office in Detroit Lakes will be closed within the next few years and consolidated into a new regional office in Duluth.

The State Patrol has decided that Duluth and Rochester will join Roseville as the patrol’s three consolidated Public Safety Answering Points in the state — replacing centers in Detroit Lakes, Virginia, Thief River Falls, Brainerd, Marshall, Mankato and St. Cloud.

The 12-county State Patrol district headquartered in Detroit Lakes now handles dispatch work for state troopers, DNR officers, and federal agencies, as well as MnDOT plow drivers and a number of others, said Dayle Peterson, dispatch supervisor in Detroit Lakes.

He oversees four dispatchers with a combined experience of well over 100 years.

While most local police, fire and medical calls are now dispatched through the Becker County Sheriff’s Department — and will continue to be — some 911 emergency calls will end up being handled by dispatchers in Duluth, and that won’t necessarily be a good thing for area residents, said Becker County Sheriff Tim Gordon.

“Bigger isn’t always better,” he said of the state’s plans to consolidate dispatch services.

He is most concerned about losing the local dispatchers, who know the community well and can guide emergency workers to destinations that otherwise might difficult to find.

“Here you have people who belong to the community, it does add a flavor,” he said. “I don’t care what anybody says — I’ll tell the governor that.”

Peterson echoed that worry.

“The biggest concern that we as operators have is that they will take away some of the local knowledge of the area,” he said. “To go from 12 counties to 40 counties — that’s a big area.”

But he believes the transition will be seamless once it occurs. “It will take a while to get (the system) up, but once it’s up, it will be like the Internet,” he said.

Already “you can talk on a portable radio from here to Rochester,” he added.

Lt. Matt Langer of the State Patrol in St. Paul said plans are in the infancy stage.

“Basically, now that the two sites are identified we can move forward in earnest and find how much it’s going to cost to get those two sites up and operational,” Langer said.

“One of the challenges is that we have to try to take care of employees who work in those sites that will eventually close. It’s not happening overnight.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed an executive order in January charging a work group with developing a comprehensive strategy for regionally based Public Safety Answering Points to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the service.

Langer said the number of troopers in the Duluth district shouldn’t change, but Capt. Steve Stromback, who supervises the Duluth district, said the number of dispatchers needed will increase. The size of the new building and the costs associated with it haven’t been determined.

Gordon said the consolidation issue has been discussed for a half-dozen years, but he had hoped Detroit Lakes would be selected as one of the consolidated headquarters. As the plan stands, there won’t be any State Patrol dispatchers in the western part of the state.

It is expected to be at least two years before the “Next Generation 911” consolidated system is up and running.

The idea is to develop a system that can take emergency calls or messages from “any device, anytime, anywhere,” as opposed to the existing system that was designed to take calls from landline telephones, according to the Department of Public Safety’s Website.

“I think the changeover is going to be difficult,” Gordon said. “I’m hoping our relationship with the State Patrol and that cooperation and collaboration will continue to exist — right now I can pick up the phone and talk to people at the State Patrol and I know everyone. When you get geographically too large, you lose some of that.”

The county will face some large expenses in the near future to ensure that it is ready for the conversion to digital radio in 2012, he added.

“With this new generation 911, there are too many questions and not enough answers to know how effective and efficient it’s going to be.”

Only going to have 3 main dispatch centers in the state in 3yrs or so.

[vf702]

I was wondering when they were going to announce it. I had heard that they were considering St. Cloud for the south center. That would have been a huge area.

[kb0nly]

Stupid... It will suck for people in areas where they loose that local knowledge and start getting dispatched by some large center somewhere else in the state.

It's bad enough calling 911 from a cell phone down here in SW MN, it routes you to the MNHP dispatch in Marshall and they don't know jack most of the time. I had to put my local county dispatch into my phone and then set it for emergency so i don't call 911 anymore, just call the local sheriff's office instead.

All the Marshall dispatch does is relay your call to the county your emergency is in, pointless.

[N_Jay]

Originally Posted by kb0nly

Stupid... It will suck for people in areas where they loose that local knowledge and start getting dispatched by some large center somewhere else in the state.

It's bad enough calling 911 from a cell phone down here in SW MN, it routes you to the MNHP dispatch in Marshall and they don't know jack most of the time. I had to put my local county dispatch into my phone and then set it for emergency so i don't call 911 anymore, just call the local sheriff's office instead.

All the Marshall dispatch does is relay your call to the county your emergency is in, pointless.

"Hey it's another guy calling in on the wrong number!"

No ALI/ANI,
No Location,
No transfer (not as easy and not with ANI/ALI/Location)
Picked up at a lower priority than proper 911 calls,
No easy call-back

They must love you.

[mmtstc]

In my experiences having worked in a consolidated dispatch center that dispatched Public Safety all over MN and a site in both in SD and WI, you have some definite advantages.

In my former center, we had a minimum of 6 dispatchers handling about 40 ALS ambulance crews in 11 different sites, 6 Helicopters in 5 different sites and 3 airplanes in 2 different sites. All dispatchers can handle every site, but the dispatchers also have group of areas that they are specially trained in giving them area knowledge, I was trained specially on Duluth, St. Cloud, Litchfield, Little Falls and Fairmont. If Rochester isnt busy and duluth is, Rochester is able to help out Duluth or where ever help is needed versus, a regional center that may only have 1 or 2 dispatchers that dont have much backup if they get overloaded causing a delay.

Also, a consolidated center allows for greater uniformity and a better and higher level of training and skill of the actual communiators...

There are many feelings on either side of the consolidation idea, but im all for it, both from a cost saving stand point, but more so as an end user who has a reliance on consolidated dispatch centers for my own personal safety.

[kb0nly]

Originally Posted by N_Jay

"Hey it's another guy calling in on the wrong number!"

No ALI/ANI,
No Location,
No transfer (not as easy and not with ANI/ALI/Location)
Picked up at a lower priority than proper 911 calls,
No easy call-back

They must love you.

Actually they do... And they don't answer their phone with lower priority than 911 calls because its the same phone... Let me explain...

Around here they prefer that cellphone users call the sheriff's office emergency number, LEO's around here refer to it as the dispatch line. The dispatcher always answers it as "Sheriff's Office, Emergency, How May I Help You?" It's the same phone on the desk, it flashes and rings be it a direct dialed incoming call or a 911 call from a landline. So if you call that direct line from a cell phone around here its better than calling 911 and getting routed through another county to get back to your county services.

You have to know the area to understand. Its sparsely populated, a lot of small towns in this county all under 1,000 in population. Dialing 911 on a cell phone wastes a LOT of valuable time in an emergency. You get routed to dispatch in Marshall, which is in Lyon County and we are in Lincoln County, they then transfer you to Marshall PD most of the time because that's the main 911 call center for Lyon County, they will then transfer you to Lincoln County dispatch or tone out a department if its close enough to them.

The last accident we had down here where the caller was on a cellphone was crazy stupid from my point of view in the way it was handled. They called in to report a two vehicle accident just miles south of Tyler where i live, Marshall Highway Patrol dispatch handled the call, they called Lincoln County and then they transferred the call, it was almost ten minutes from the time the person called in and MNHP took down all the info and transferred to Lincoln County before they toned out the ambulance, which by the way took maybe a whole five minutes to reach to scene.

Compare this to an accident i came across one night, i called direct to Lincoln County and heard the ambulance get dispatched while i was still on the phone with them, mere minutes. Time counts in an emergency.

And i don't know what your talking about but they can do pretty much anything on your list. They can transfer me, and have, they can call me back, and have, and they can even get my location from the cell phone, and they have.

[NDRADIONUT]

Area sheriffs question Minnesota State Patrol's plan to consolidate call centers
MOORHEAD - A plan to consolidate 911 emergency call centers across the state is drawing fire in northwestern Minnesota.
By: Associated Press, Associated Press

MOORHEAD - A plan to consolidate 911 emergency call centers across the state is drawing fire in northwestern Minnesota.

Clay County Sheriff Bill Bergquist says closing the State Patrol's Detroit Lakes dispatch center would be a mistake. He questions whether someone answering calls in Duluth would know his area well enough.

The plan is part of an executive order signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. It would shift dispatching responsibilities to Duluth, Rochester and Roseville. The center in Thief River Falls would also close.

Becker County Sheriff Tim Gordon says he's concerned there won't be enough dispatchers on duty to handle all the calls, and he's concerned for the safety of officers.

The ``next generation' 911 system is probably two years away.


Copyright & copy; 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Tags: state patrol, minnesota state patrol, news, minnesota

[kb0nly]

Any news if they will close the Marshall Dispatch then?? All MNHP units in district 2300 are dispatched from there. 2300 covers most of the SW corner of the state.