By Karen Zapf
The Pittsburgh Tribune Review
PLUM, Pa. — Plum residents, police officers and dispatchers crowded into the council room Monday night to make their case that the police dispatch center should remain open.
The message resonated during a three-hour, emotionally charged public hearing on the fate of the center. Closing it would save an estimated $180,000 next year and $300,000 a year in 2011 and beyond.
“I am speaking as a woman, a mother and a grandmother,” resident Shirley Hester told about 75 audience members that also included District Judge Linda Zucco. “I would like the dispatch center to stay. I feel secure knowing they are near here and will take care of me.”
Councilmen Chuck McMeekin and Steve “Skip” Taylor earlier this month successfully called for delaying a vote on the 2010 budget in order to hear residents’ views on a plan to close the dispatch center at the end of March and transfer the service to Allegheny County’s 911 dispatch center in Point Breeze at no cost to Plum.
Residents who spoke at this week’s meeting said they fear the county’s dispatchers aren’t familiar with borough streets, and police will be delayed in answering calls. They credited Plum’s five dispatchers with having intimate knowledge of the community and taking care of duties that the county center will not handle. They said the Plum dispatchers handle situations that result in officers not having to become involved.
Councilman Paul Dern, who was not re-elected in fall, said borough officials are looking at making provisions for dispatcher duties. He said the county center has experience with Plum in dispatching ambulance and fire calls for about two years.
The county center dispatches Plum’s ambulance and fire calls.
The hearing was heated from the beginning, when council President Dave Vento said only borough residents would be permitted to speak. Taylor and McMeekin objected.
Taylor said borough police officers, who live in other communities, wanted to voice their views.
“We should have anyone with relevance speak,” McMeekin said.
Council decided to stay with limiting comment to borough residents, but later relented when Plum police Officer Darryl Granata, a member of the police negotiating team who does not live in the borough, asked to speak.
Many speakers said they oppose the loss of the dispatchers who monitor prisoners in the Plum lockup. Plans would call for the jail cells to be eliminated. Borough officials are discussing the transportation of prisoners to a nearby police department lockup, including New Kensington, which would charge about $60 a day for the service.
Sherry Kudranski, wife of Plum police Sgt. Richard Kudranski, said she would fear for her husband’s safety if he is alone.
“My husband at times arrests a drunk driver and brings him in by himself,” Sherry Kudranski said. “Many times there are two officers on duty. Who will back up my husband when he is by himself?”
Two retired Penn Hills police officers who are borough residents implored council to keep the dispatch center open. The county center dispatches Penn Hills police calls.
Dispatchers distributed a handout detailing a laundry list of duties they handle aside from dispatching 15,000 emergency and non-emergency police calls a year.
Bob Cramer, a dispatcher for more than 30 years, said the center “keeps the police department functioning on a daily basis.”
Cramer said the dispatch center is the “most important room in Plum Borough.”
Allegheny County 911 communications manager Bob Harvey, who attended the hearing, told council he has faith in the 250 county dispatchers.
“We are very accountable, and we take our work seriously,” Harvey said.
Harvey said the county center dispatches calls for 110 of 130 communities in Allegheny County.
No tax increase coming
Property owners in Plum will not see a tax hike next year.
Borough council voted 4-2 Monday night to approve an $11.1 million budget for 2010 that holds the line on taxes. The property tax rate will remain at 4.3 mills. A mill brings in about $1.2 million in revenue.
Councilmen Chuck McMeekin and Steve “Skip” Taylor voted against the budget. Councilman Al Boynton was absent.
McMeekin and Taylor said they couldn’t support the budget because it doesn’t contain money to keep the police dispatch center open after April 1.
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