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I am one of the five Oakwood Dispatchers that have serious concerns about consolidating the dispatching duties of the Oakwood Public Safety Department.
I have been an Oakwood resident for 35 years, graduated from Oakwood, Class of 1979. My parents graduated from Oakwood, Class of 1957 and my Grandparents lived in Oakwood. I’ve worked at the Oakwood Public Safety Department for 26 years and 10 months and I think I have a pretty good idea of what the Oakwood community has come to expect when it comes to the level of service they receive.
MY CONCERNS ARE THESE:
The calls you make for Police/Fire/EMS and 911 will go outside of the City of Oakwood and possibly fielded by people that will have no knowledge of the city’s lay-out or of its citizens.
What guarantee do you have that the calls will be prioritized correctly?
How will the in-house personnel be dispatched on Fire and EMS calls (That is currently set up through an in-house intercom and a link with the dispatch computer and because the dispatchers actually take the call, it is dispatched immediately)
How will officers access critical past history at a residence (This can be very important for officer safety)
Who will field all of the vacation house check calls?
Who will take care of keeping the vacation house books up to date on a daily basis?
Who will call in the stand-by foreman when you have a major water leak with water running into your basement or the roads are getting slick due to snow or ice in the middle of the night?
Who will monitor the officers in the booking and jail area when there is a prisoner (Again, another important safety issue)
Take care of a citizen who walks into the lobby in the middle of the night because they locked themselves out of their house knowing that they have a house key on file in our dispatch center. Who will check to see if there is a key on file if your fire alarm goes off and no one is home or if you have fallen inside your home and a neighbor checks on you and sees that you are down in your home but the neighbor doesn’t have a key?
Maintain alarm files as calls are received.
These are just a few of the many concerns we have.
The City has not provided what the costs will be (start-up and maintaining.) The dispatchers were not told of the meeting with the County nor invited to this meeting but yet the media was invited. In fact, we have not been given any information on this at all.
It is my understanding that the Kettering, Centerville or Oakwood Officer’s do not like this idea and have concerns themselves.
The residents of the City of Oakwood expect and pay for certain services that may either be lost or seriously compromised. A levy was just renewed in order to keep the SAME level of services that they have received in the past. The dispatchers are part of these services. I’m sure your taxes will not go down. Is this spending the tax-payers money wisely? I doubt it.
The dispatchers and officers already have the ability to communicate directly with other area departments via the radio system and in an emergency we can use this ability to enhance the communication with those departments if needed.
The City of Oakwood is being railroaded into a decision that ultimately has been given less thought than the deer of this city. The citizens of the community and employees have been given no timeline and this was done at a time when many residents were out of town and may not be aware of what is being considered or how soon. More study needs to be done and questions answered before this is ever brought to a vote.
Laurie A Heisey
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