By April Hunt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
DUNWOODY, Ga. — Dunwoody has a month to make sure it could still use its radio systems and determine how fire department calls would be handled if the city joins the 911 center that currently serves Sandy Springs and Johns Creek.
A draft deal calls for Dunwoody to pay $1.2 million a year for three years for the center, called ChatComm, to handle its emergency calls. The city would make a one-time, $570,000 payment for additional equipment and training.
That’s about the same price the city expects it would spend to launch its own 911 network, which remains an option.
“We are still working through it,” Dunwoody Mayor Ken Wright said. “We want the best possible service for our citizens.”
A determination wouldn’t happen until next summer, since DeKalb County’s newest city must give six months’ notice if it leaves the county-run dispatch system.
Dunwoody could stay with DeKalb, though it is unlikely. The county has yet to respond to a city request for dedicated dispatchers and its own radio channel, required if it does remain with the DeKalb system.
City Manager Warren Hutmacher and Police Chief Billy Grogan have recommended joining ChatComm, because it offers a fixed price and more local control.
“We’ll have more information and be a little more mature as a city if we go with ChatComm,” Hutmacher said. “We could still start our own in three years.”
If Dunwoody signs on, it also means savings to the Fulton County cities that have been subsidizing ChatComm since it launched about 14 months ago.
The $5.6 million center on Mount Vernon Highway includes millions of dollars in specialized software and 46 trained emergency medical dispatchers.
The $1.50 fee on every wireless or land-based phone line in the cities has fallen short of covering the $3.5 million annual cost to run the center.
Sandy Springs has since transferred $900,000 to cover the shortfall, with Johns Creek making up the rest. The cities would pay about a third less if Dunwoody joined.
“We are so much alike,” Sandy Springs Mayor Eva Galambos said of Dunwoody, which shares a border and some services with Sandy Springs. “We’d be delighted to have them, and it would be a win-win for everybody.”
Dunwoody, though, isn’t completely sold. The City Council postponed a vote earlier this week so it could make sure police officers could still use their radios, which operate under DeKalb’s system. The question remains unanswered, though city staff are checking with the county on the issue this week, Hutmacher said.
The answers are more clear for fire dispatch concerns. DeKalb’s fire dispatch already works with other 911 centers, such as the one in Chamblee for its police department, for those calls.
ChatComm would work with DeKalb to incorporate those procedures into assigning units to calls in Dunwoody if the city joins, said Noah Reiter, the assistant city manager in Sandy Springs who handles the center.
That work could be done during training for the 12 new dispatchers that would be hired to handle Dunwoody’s calls. Reiter added that the training period also would include enough time to create automatic aid for police calls for the first time.
Under that system, dispatchers would assign the closest patrol car to an emergency, regardless of the borders. So an accident in the Perimeter area, where Dunwoody and Sandy Springs merge, could have responders from either city.
“We already have a good working relationship, so the goal would be to emphasize that to provide service to our citizens, regardless of what city they’re in,” Reiter said.
A main selling point could be that the company running the center must ensure response times meet certain standards or pay for failures.
Problems with responses came to the forefront in 2008, when a Fulton dispatcher sent an ambulance crew to Atlanta instead of to the Johns Creek home of Darlene Dukes, who later died.
Dunwoody had its own emergency-response problem in January, when a 74-year-old woman died in fire at a house that firefighters had checked five hours earlier but left when they couldn’t find the blaze. Ann Bartlett’s family is now suing the county.
“This is an important decision, for everyone’s safety and piece of mind,” Wright said.
Dunwoody City Council could review the details at its Nov. 8 meeting. It is slated to vote on Nov. 22.
Copyright 2010 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution