Southwest Central Relocation

[werinshades]

Office of the Statewide 911 Administrator

They'll eventually be moving from their current location on College Dr. in Palos Heights, to a new location in Palos Hills: 8911 W. 95th st. In the southwest burbs, their will be 3 dispatch centers within 3 miles or so of each other:

Justice dispatches for themselves and Willow Springs located at Archer & 88th Ave (approximately 79th st).

Hickory Hills dispatches for themselves, Summit and Bedford Park located at 87th St and 88th Ave.

Soon..Southwest Central currently dispatches for Palos Heights, Palos Hills, Worth, Chicago Ridge, Crestwood and their future home will be in Palos Hills.

 

[W9WSS]

Sort of surprises me with the exit over the past several years of Clarendon Hills Police & Fire, Hinsdale Police & Fire, Willowbrook PD, Burr Ridge PD, Indian Head Park PD, and Countryside PD, who were all on SWCD Net 9. To the best of my recollection, Lemont PD remained on Net 9. I don't know if anyone else is currently on Net 9 with Lemont PD.

Why is the Illinois State Police involved with this "transition" to a new physical facility for SWCD, and with the absence of the prior entities, is all this cost-effective? Maybe I should have read more of the attached document of 78 pages that the above link refers to.

 

[werinshades]

Sort of surprises me with the exit over the past several years of Clarendon Hills Police & Fire, Hinsdale Police & Fire, Willowbrook PD, Burr Ridge PD, Indian Head Park PD, and Countryside PD, who were all on SWCD Net 9. To the best of my recollection, Lemont PD remained on Net 9. I don't know if anyone else is currently on Net 9 with Lemont PD.

Why is the Illinois State Police involved with this "transition" to a new physical facility for SWCD, and with the absence of the prior entities, is all this cost-effective? Maybe I should have read more of the attached document of 78 pages that the above link refers to.

It's the 9-1-1 consolidation plans web site I linked to and any changes/modifications they have to be notified. Yes, I agree with many departments leaving, not sure of the long-range plan here?

 

[N9JIG]

Sort of surprises me with the exit over the past several years of Clarendon Hills Police & Fire, Hinsdale Police & Fire, Willowbrook PD, Burr Ridge PD, Indian Head Park PD, and Countryside PD, who were all on SWCD Net 9. To the best of my recollection, Lemont PD remained on Net 9. I don't know if anyone else is currently on Net 9 with Lemont PD.

Why is the Illinois State Police involved with this "transition" to a new physical facility for SWCD, and with the absence of the prior entities, is all this cost-effective? Maybe I should have read more of the attached document of 78 pages that the above link refers to.

The State Police is in charge of coordinating statewide 9-1-1 plans. Working with the ICC they review and approve the plans to comply with 9-1-1 legislation like consolidation etc.

A few decades ago when many agencies were starting up 9-1-1 systems these were handled mostly by the ICC and they often held hearings to approve 9-1-1 plans for new or modified systems. Since these almost always involved setting up ETSB's and telephone surcharges the ICC had to have a hearing to approve it.

When I filed our first 9-1-1 plan we were apparently the first community to do 9-1-1 with no surcharge and was the first 9-1-1 plan approved without a hearing.

 

[werinshades]

It looks like they'll be building the facility from the ground up so I'm sure it'll be awhile, at least thats what I can see on Google maps. By then, you never know who might opt-in.

 

[N9JIG]

My presumption is that they consider it easier to build a new facility and keep the old one in operation until completed. Remodeling/rehabbing an existing facility is hard enough, even harder when you still have to maintain operations in the same space.

With a new facility they can learn from the experiences of the old. It might also be to correct the size, I don't know if the old facility was too small or large for the current client list, it might also be too expensive to maintain and there might be political considerations involved.

 

[werinshades]

Another thing crossed my mind Rich was whether the consoles and/or radio equipment would be compatible with a Starcom upgrade since Southwest Central has been around awhile? Or..the cost associated with upgrading wasn't worth it?

 

[N9JIG]

It would be *possible* to make almost any existing console work with SC21 using control stations but that can be limited to not much more than PTT and receive audio. Newer ones would provide better functionality and connectivity, with MW or IP connections instead of RF. That would allow virtually unlimited talkgroups to be accessed and with much better voice quality and feature sets than one would get with control stations.