County sheriff looking to upgrade dispatch system

Lincoln County Sheriff Daryl Anderson asked the county board of commissioners last week to consider spending $68,000 in equipment to improve radio communication and to give the county the ability to dispatch emergency responders in the Troy area.

“This is an upgrade to the current system in Lincoln County that will provide options for later down the road,” Commissioner John Konzen said.

The “one-time investment” could lead to potential savings, Konzen said, referring to Lincoln County someday consolidating its three dispatch centers in Troy, Eureka and Libby into one centralized center in Libby.

Anderson made a presentation with the help of Vic White of Lincoln County Emergency Management, sheriff deputies, a Libby dispatcher and Steve Mollenhoff of Montana Electronics Co., in Missoula.

The $68,346 estimate would cover the cost of equipment and setup, Mollenhoff explained. The new equipment would not only give the county dispatch center in Libby the capability of dispatching fire and ambulance crews in the Troy area, it would improve the sheriff’s office communication down Bull Lake Road and prevent a glitch that doesn’t allow the dispatcher to hear ambulance crews when they are near the hospital emergency room.

In an event that the Troy dispatch center shuts down, the proposed system would allow Libby to take over and dispatch for that portion of the county, the group explained.

Commissioners Konzen and Marianne Roose cautioned that Troy area residents would have to vote out their dispatch center before a centralized dispatch center could ever be formed.

“My concern is that voters in Troy voted for their own dispatch,” Roose said.

Residents in the Troy Area 911 Dispatch District, comprised of the portion of the county with a 295 telephone prefix, voted in 2001 on a mill levy to fund the center, which began as a volunteer service in the early 1970s. Presenters estimated that the Troy Dispatch center costs about $100,000 per year to run.

Konzen agreed with Anderson that the dispatch centers should someday be consolidated to save money.

“They (Troy area citizens) won’t be happy but in my opinion it’s a duplication in services that doesn’t need to occur,” Konzen said.

The Troy center dispatches fire, ambulance, highway patrol and Troy police calls in its area, and transfers sheriff’s office calls to the dispatch center in Libby.

The issue of forming a centralized dispatch center has been a point of contention for years between dispatch centers in the county.