Hopkins Considers Cutting City Dispatch Center

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N0WEF

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Police Chief Mike Reynolds estimates the cut could save the city $300,000 per year.

Hopkins’ city manager and emergency services are backing a plan that would eliminate the city’s dispatch center and transfer dispatch responsibilities to Hennepin County—saving a few hundred thousand dollars in the process.

Rest of the story:
Hopkins Considers Cutting City Dispatch Center - Hopkins, MN Patch
 
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SCPD

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Another PSAP bites the dust...Hopefully the dispatchers will be hired with Hennipen County if Hopkins moves that way. The new HCSO dispatch center will be open in 2013.
 

northscan23

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St. Louis County did the same thing recently. They had a dispatch center in Virgina but closed it. Now the Duluth Center is the only one. This could be a growing trend
 

stmills

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Hopkins will be moving to Hennepin County Radio- Possibly as early as Aug 1, 2012. After Nov 30 2012, cities that turned down the County offer to provide dispatch service back in 2003 will again be eligiable to request service by the county. Should be interesting to see if others start to move, I know Golden Valley was wanting to move to the County system, and even when the moved to Edina the talk was Edina was a temp move until the could move to the County.

Hopkins to Come Under County Safety Dispatch System — Hennepin County, Minnesota
 

stmills

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I am guessing south- I believe that South is the lowest traffic level, North in the Middle and East the most. When they moved St. Anthony to the North from the East they set the standard that island departments can be placed on any main based on volume balancing needs.
 

stmills

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According to Hopkins PD website Aug 1 is the day. Comment about there new channel is one neighboring departments monitor leads me to believe they will be on the South Main.
 

SCPD

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That's good to know. Will they still use the same squad numbers or be assigned ones from Hennepin radio?.
 

jdstei2

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The City web-site says Aug 21:

Dispatch Transition
On August 21, 2012 The Hopkins Police Department along with the Hopkins Fire Department will be making a transition to the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office for dispatch services.
 

mmtstc

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their Radio ID numbers fit in with the Hennepin county standard, so reason stands that they will stay with their current unit ID configuration. I'll shoot an email and find out what main they are going to be on...
 

SCPD

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That would make since. All the RID's will be or already have been added to the Dispatch consoles and leaving the squad numbers would mean the officers would not have to learn new unit numbers. I was able to sit in one night at Hennepin radio in Golden Valley and it was sweet!. The room is small but the good news is that the new Dispatch center which is desperately needed will be opening in 2014 next to the Workhouse. While I was there they were setting up the Motorola MCC7000's in the training room as they will be replacing the Gold Elite Consoles at some point. The CAD software is really nice as well especially with the GPS tracking of the squads. It's a first class run operation and the Dispatchers I sat with were polite, answered the few questions I asked (I did not want to bother them, but they said don't worry about it) and had a sense of humor to be able to get through the night. It was a Wednesday night so the amount of calls and radio traffic was kind of quiet which was fine, as I was in brain overload just looking at the room. The have 3 mice on there table to operate the CAD, radio, and there admin computer and I just have a hard time with just one mouse!!. Kudos to the 911 dispatchers in the country!!
 
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SCPD

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Has anyone heard any Hopkins PD traffic on Hennepin radio yet?. I don't have my radio handy to listen now.
 

stmills

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Hopkins police - Hennepin South
Hopkins Fire- Hennepin fire main tones sound like may be the same tones that were on Hopkins main
Just heard calls on both mains for Hopkins units.
Fire is using Hopkins Fire main-10792 as there ops channel, no longer tied to 154.0400, still listening for usage of other Hopkins talkgroups, I suspect they will remain Hopkins Ops channels maybe something like this:
Firemain becomes ops 2
Fire ch2 becomes ops 3
Police main becomes PD 2
Police ch2 becomes PD tact
Common stays the same.
 
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