Elected through Terror

Untitled Part 36

One very large state mandated assignment, hit my desk as I took Office. We had to have a plan for a county wide 9-1-1 system into the State by December 31, 1985.

As mentioned earlier, work had begun, a consultant had been hired and a few meetings had been conducted, but we were nowhere ready to formulate a plan.

The obstacle to full compliance was how to work with the volunteer fire and ambulance services around the county – in addition to the Rajneesh situation.

The City of The Dalles (City) had been in the 9-1-1 system for several years. They had a communication center manned with dispatchers 24 hours a day. The state had levied a phone tax for 9-1-1 centers several years prior to 1985. The money was to be used only for the 9-1-1 calls, equipment AND administrative duties of forming a plan.

The City had used all its 9-1-1 funding received on those two telephone exchanges. Each year they had applied it to the com center. The funding was insufficient to operate the center so additional funds were used from the City's general funds to finance it and to augment it with answering and dispatching the City Police, and the Fire and Ambulance services for the two numbers assigned to the city.

There were citizens outside the City that also used those numbers, so any calls from them, of a law enforcement nature, were relayed to the Sheriff's Office which had its own dispatchers. The ambulance service operated by the City Fire Department handled calls in both the City and the outside areas. The city dispatched the fire departments.

There were two fire departments that the City dispatched for the City's and Wasco Rural. Wasco Rural handled all calls, outside the City limits, in The Dalles telephone exchange. They paid the City for their additional services.

As per law, the County and other incorporated cities within the county had been placing their portions of the 9-1-1 money into interest bearing accounts until it could be used for the planning and implementation of the county plan.

Part of that money was being used to pay the consultant for his time and advice. He was also the person who was to be the spokesperson for the planning process.

The problem was one of trust, the agencies and cities outside The City didn't trust The City's council or personnel. They were afraid they would lose control of their program and the service calls would be delayed due to the 9-1-1 operators being unfamiliar with the county and their area in particular.

As the Sheriff, and the Office that would most benefit from the plan in the county, I had to be involved in the process. I figured I could quickly get the volunteers to sign off on the plan – I figured wrong.

While I was their elected Sheriff, I had been a police officer for the City of The Dalles. They had to be convinced my loyalty now was to the whole county, not just The City. I had to prove I was there to help them.

We did have the benefit of a highly respected County Judge (he lived outside one of our smaller communities in another part of the county), who was supporting our work, but still the nuts and bolts of the plan had to be decided by ALL the agencies affected; and they wanted to protect their programs.

It was a long process. I spend dozens of hours driving around the county, not to mention the even more hundreds of hours talking to both the individual organizations AND key people in those organizations to get their concerns and ideas and then to assure them they would be heard and their concerns addressed.

Somewhere along the line someone suggested using the hospital's dispatching service – since they were there 24 hours to call in staff. We quickly dissuaded that idea – there wasn't a cop or firemen who would have agreed to that; it would be like having a telephone operator dispatch us. Dispatching for emergency departments would be much too involved; they would have to pass background tests, go through a lot of state mandated training not to mention calling a doctor and dealing with people in crisis requires a different kind of personality for our dispatcher.

From start to finish a major supporter of the county wide plan was The Dalles City Manager. He had enough respect from his council to give him the authority to negotiate. His flexibility and insights along with his influence with the City Council made all the difference in getting the City to agree to the plan.

However, those volunteer agencies outside the City questioned his loyalties to the program; he was hired by The Dalles to follow the orders of the Council. While he was a big supporter of a county system, I did most of the leg work with the volunteers by myself, no point in adding fuel to the fire and he had many other things on his plate.

One of the concerns was the City controlling the center. The City was the 800 pound gorilla; almost half of the citizens lived in the City limits.

Some on the City council wanted control; their justification was that since the City would be putting up most of the funding, the City should have the control of the center. Those that felt that way were not quiet.

It was an obstacle to the forming of the plan and the acceptance by those outside the city.