Joint regional dispatch mulled WESTPORT -- Fire officials from Norwalk, Westport and Wilton may soon begin searching for ways to combine their dispatch units in order to create a virtual regional fire department. Emergency responder officials at the meeting of the Representative Town Meeting's Long-range Planning Committee spoke about regionalization of communications Thursday evening. Fire Chief Denis McCarthy and Mike Dolhancryk, Norwalk's director of combined communications and emergency preparedness planning, said the easiest way to boost fire service resources is to create a regional dispatch center. McCarthy said it has been considered more than once to combine the departments throughout the region when one or more chiefs leave their department. "It won't ever happen because everyone wants their own fire department," he said. "I still think there is a better way to do it." Not every town or city can afford the personnel or equipment necessary in the fire services, he said, and regionalization would give communities access to those services. Combining the dispatch centers, he said, would pool the resources and allow all the different departments to act as one. Westport has 13 firefighters on duty during each shift, McCarthy said, but if there was a major a fire, 20-to-25 firefighters would be needed. It is not cost effective for town officials to pay for that many firefighters, he said, but by developing relationships with neighboring towns those resources can be available during a fire. Dolhancryk said Norwalk is creating a new dispatch center and that once it is complete, the city can look at possibly combining dispatches with other fire departments. He said he would want to start with Norwalk, Westport and Wilton and then build. "As they say, if you build it, they will come," he said. Police Chief Al Fiore, however, said he is not ready to combine police dispatches on a regional scale. "We don't work routinely with other police departments like the fire department does," he said. "It makes more sense for them to do this." Moving the dispatch from police headquarters would also not be feasible, he said, because residents expect officers to be available 24 hours per day ever day. If someone is driving and feels unsafe because they are being followed, Fiore said, they will come to police headquarters. "People expect to walk in and have an officer there," he said. "We can't close." Plus, the department detains people and there needs to be officers on duty watching the lock-up, Fiore said. "I'm not saying no to it in the future, but I just have concerns," he said. Combining dispatches in the town, however, will not solve the needs for the fire department, although it will help the police, McCarthy said. By sending the fire department's dispatchers to the police department, he said, it would increase the service. It would be better for the fire department to combine its dispatch regionally, he said, so he is opposed with combining with the police dispatch. In order to move forward with creating a regional fire dispatch center, McCarthy said the Norwalk facility needs to open, which is scheduled in April. Then, a study would have to be conducted into the best way to move forward, he said, which Norwalk is planning to do. Jennifer Connic covers Westport and Weston. |