By Katina Caraganis
The Sentinel & Enterprise
ASHBY, Mass. — Selectmen will host a meeting Aug. 3 with representatives of IMC Systems, a program that stores police, fire and EMS records to decide whether data can be switched from the town’s current system without losing anything.
Town dispatchers now use a similar program called Pamet, and officers and dispatchers have raised concerns during regionalization discussions with Ashburnham because the two systems are not compatible.
Officers said they are afraid information stored in their records would not be transferred over, and valuable data they rely on to stay safe would be lost unless it was manually entered into the new system.
Selectman Dan Meunier said Thursday that when questions about compatibility were raised by Detective John Dillon two weeks ago, a vote taken to regionalize with Ashburnham failed, 2-1, because of the unanswered questions.
“I guess the state is stepping in and trying to encourage us to regionalize. I expressed my concerns to Doug (Briggs),” he said. “I was in favor of this for many reasons, one of which being that Doug was the town administrator in both towns and I had confidence in him overseeing this and we had a dream grant. Everything looked great, especially because we’ll have to regionalize eventually.”
Meunier said Briggs got back to him and said there was time to explore the issue further before closing the door on discussions.
“Doug said we have time and the state is pushing for this, so we figured we’d invite people to hear how the software works and we’ll get feedback from them,” Meunier said, noting that keeping dispatchers employed while getting new software and saving money is still in the forefront of his mind.
“I will look at anything that makes sense,” he said, adding he’s not sure what direction he’ll go in if residents still express concerns next week.
“I will have to wait to see how it goes. We’re still missing $100,000 in the grant awarded to us so we’d have to see where we could maybe cut,” he said. “Does that mean we don’t get laptops or something else? I asked to see a detailed plan to see exactly what we will spend our money on.”
Ashby Police Sgt. Fred Alden said he was unaware of the Aug. 3 meeting, but said he would attend to see what was said.
“We were told they were getting ready to do some sort of presentation but we hadn’t gotten any details yet,” he said. “I guess this would have to depend on what they show up (with). I know other departments use it but I don’t know if it’s better or worse for us.”
Alden said the department has used Pamet for 12 years with positive results.
“I think it works for us pretty good, actually,” he said. “I didn’t think we were looking to switch. We’re not the ones who requested the demonstration but we’ll look at it with an open mind.”
The session will begin at 9 a.m. at Town Hall.
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