CCBMEDIA PHOTO
Falmouth Police Station.
FALMOUTH – A new consolidated dispatch center could be placed on the first floor of the Falmouth Police Department.
Selectmen approved that concept last month, after hearing Town Manager Julian Suso’s opinion on the matter.
Suso said the consolidation would benefit the town in multiple ways, including saving $100,000 a year in overtime costs, and freeing an extra officer for each police department shift, “360 days a year.”
“Needing an answering point for evenings and weekends is increasingly imperative,” Suso said. “Avoiding two standalone communication centers and the kind of problems we encountered in the last winter storm, where we found calls bouncing back and forth between police and fire dispatch, that would no longer occur.”
The two contenders for dispatch placement had been the second floor of the Fire Department and the first floor of the Police Department.
But Suso said the Fire Station’s layout was not conducive, citing equipment that would be in the way of foot traffic.
He reported that the town’s engineering consultant estimated a cost of $578,000 to renovate the needed area inside the police station, and $729,000 to put dispatch in the fire station.
The town will vote on whether to consolidate dispatch into one center at town meeting tonight.
By ADAM FORZIATI, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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