PUNTA GORDA, Fla. — At Wednesday’s Punta Gorda City Council meeting, residents and city officials spoke out against a plan that would shift 911 call routing responsibilities from the city’s dispatch center to the county’s.
“Let's be clear this has never been about improving public safety or 911 services, this is about control,” said Dr. Keith Henderson during public comment.
Watch Fox 4's Alex Orenczuk report on the county's plan to take over 911 calls from Punta Gorda:
“There’s absolutely no demonstration that losing our own 911 system is going to improve services to the residents of punta gorda,” said Michael Hirsh.
Sheriff Prummell spoke to the city council about the plan, at the request of Charlotte County commissioners who delayed voting on the plan at their April 8 meeting. He said the point of consolidating the 911 centers is to streamline emergency services and reduce the transferring of calls betweens dispatches, which was recommended by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission.
“This is one of the top recommendations that came out of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas report, is to consolidate where you can,” said Sheriff Prummell. “This isn’t me being a power trip.”
The city’s Police Chief Pam Smith, who is a member of that commission, said the city is still in compliance with the recommendations.
“The recommendation is that you as a primary dispatch center is that you have direct radio contact with the first responders that are handling the incident that you are getting a 911 call for, and we do that,” said Chief Smith.
Chief Smith and the city’s Fire Chief, Holden Gibbs, have already denounced the plan, and reiterated their thoughts to the council. They said the move would delay their response times, which Fire Chief Holden Gibbs said is about 40 seconds faster than the county’s because of differing protocols.
“If they do take the 911 calls, and then have to transfer them back to us, we will see a delay,” said Chief Gibbs. “Plain and simple, and it will have a negative impact on the quality of life of our citizens."
Sheriff Prummell also noted that he believes just taking over 911 calls would cause delays, unless the two dispatches were fully consolidated.
“With just transferring the 911 system one way or the other, one of us is going to have a lag time,” said Sheriff Prummell. “There's no stopping that right now.”
The city council has already voted against a complete consolidation of the city’s dispatch with the county’s in February. Sheriff Prummell said the city should reconsider.
“A complete consolidation, like I've stated over and over again, the call comes into one location, one dispatcher, everybody hears it on the radio when it goes out and there’s no more transferring,” said Sheriff Prummell.
When Mayor Debi Lux asked the Sheriff why the decision needs to be made now, he said it was because it would be ideal to consolidate while the county’s new 911 center is under construction.
“That should be opening up at the beginning of the year, so it would be ideal that when the new communications center opens up that we have everybody in place and all the consoles set up,” said Sheriff Prummell. “You can continue to just kick it down the road but eventually something may break and something may happen. So, we’re in a position and we can do this now.”
Commissioners will vote on the resolution at their next meeting on April 22.
