Thoughts on Regionalizing Public Safety - eastern Massachusetts 1. In eastern Mass, most communities have 1 UHF police repeater, and 1 UHF fire repeater. Coverage is fairly good. Mobile repeaters (MO3) are rarely used. Multiple remote receiver sites are used. It seems to me that countywide systems usually have far fewer repeater sites - but coverage probably is much worse.
2. Fire stations in eastern Massachusetts are fairly well spread out. Full regionalization might lead to the closing of 10 or 15 stations at most. If these are the oldest stations, then maybe we would have a win win situation. (You would save the cost of building new stations - and you would free up staff to do other things). 3. The 911 system can deliver calls anywhere. Dispatchers could dispatch out of their bedrooms if they wanted to. 4. Multiple small 911 centers probably do suffer from overload if more than 1 ambulance call is received at the same time. Perhaps a goal of 1 minute response times would cut the need for dispatchers to spend 5 minutes on 911 calls giving advice. On the other hand, when a big 911 center screws up, they screw up big time. I like the idea of countywide 911 centers because it is a easy concept to grasp - 1 county = 1 dispatch center. Neat and clean. 5. If every public safety employee was required (strongly encouraged) to live in the neighborhood where he/she works - and paid enough to make that possible - that could have multiple benefits. Good middle class people living in the neighborhood - familiarity with neighborhood issues - readily available reserves in disasters. 6. Training is regionalized now - as are specialty services. Administration is fragmented with probably over 700 "chiefs" in the state. 7. Fire calls are down - EMS calls are up - murders and robberys are down - computer crime is up versus 20 years ago (;-)) 8. You can add bio attacks and EMP attacks to the list of disaster threats. More? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "massfire" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/massfire?hl=en.
