Sedona Fire District’s regional communication center, where emergency calls are dispatched from the entire Verde Valley, is hoping to get a new home.
Currently SFD runs a regional 9-1-1 dispatch center from the second floor of Station No. 4 in Uptown.
Emergency calls from Black Canyon City, Camp Verde, Clarkdale, Cottonwood, Jerome, Mayer, Montezuma/Rimrock, Pinewood, Verde Valley Ambulance and Verde Valley Fire are received and dispatched from this center.
Alison Ecklund
Sedona Fire District’s regional communication center, where emergency calls are dispatched from the entire Verde Valley, is hoping to get a new home.
Currently SFD runs a regional 9-1-1 dispatch center from the second floor of Station No. 4 in Uptown.
Emergency calls from Black Canyon City, Camp Verde, Clarkdale, Cottonwood, Jerome, Mayer, Montezuma/Rimrock, Pinewood, Verde Valley Ambulance and Verde Valley Fire are received and dispatched from this center.
Dispatching calls from around the region is at no extra cost to taxpayers in SFD, said Sandi Schmidt, SFD finance manager, and local people benefit by having more dispatchers employed.
The dispatch center costs $1,207,605 to run on its own, with or without regional calls, but by including the $347,194 of recovery fees paid for by the other departments, SFD’s 2008-09 budget for dispatch is $860,411.
Historically, police departments dispatch for fire, but Sedona is the other way around and SFD likes it that way, according to SFD Assitant Chief Terry Keller.
“Most EMS [Emergency Medical Service] calls are more time sensitive. Alot of agencies recognize that so they contract with us,” he said.
Since the SFD Uptown dispatch center already has the technology, it doesn’t cost much to add a few more dispatchers if the need arises, Keller said.
The new communications center, being designed by LEA-Architects, would be fenced in for better security, Keller told the fire district board May 20.
SFD’s first construction priority is building the new Chapel area station, which Keller hopes will be finished by fall 2009, he said.
Keller would like the construction on the dispatch center to begin after the Chapel station construction begins in fall 2008, and overlap the two, he said, if that means getting a lower price by giving contractors two projects.
