Waukesha to examine consolidated dispatching center

Jan. 09, 2012

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By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel

Jan. 09, 2012 0

Waukesha - City officials are taking a look at the Waukesha County consolidated dispatch center with an eye toward future cost savings.

Waukesha Finance Committee Chairman Joe Pieper said the committee will tour the center and hear a general presentation on consolidated dispatch at its 7 p.m. meeting Tuesday. The meeting will be at the center at 1621 Woodburn Road, near the county's fleet and highway operations facility.

Pieper said the tour would serve as an introduction only, and that future meetings would focus on costs and benefits specific to Waukesha should it join the center.

The Waukesha County Communication Center opened in 2004 as a way to provide a more cost-efficient and effective emergency dispatch system achieved through economies of scale by combining operations. Currently about 40 emergency response agencies are dispatched by the center throughout Waukesha County with services to about 185,000 people. In addition, the center is the primary dispatch point to receive all wireless 9-1-1- emergency calls.

Consolidated dispatch is just one idea the Finance Committee will consider in upcoming months as potential cost saving or revenue producing measures. A lengthy list of suggestions will be discussed by the committee over the months ahead, said Pieper.

The list includes such things as reducing the number of stand-alone printers in city departments, charging a nominal annual fee for library cards, selling ad space on city vehicles, reduce the number of parks, and selling head stones and vaults at the cemetery.

About Laurel Walker

Laurel Walker covered local, school and county government for 20 years -- the last half of that at the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- before she was named Waukesha County columnist in 1997. Today she writes about the people, places and events around metropolitan Milwaukee with a broad suburban focus. She was the youngest of nine children raised on a central Wisconsin farm before leaving the nest for journalism studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a masters degree at the University of Oregon. She has spent the last half of her life in Waukesha County, where she and her husband raised two sons. Though she has a fondness for life in Waukesha, she eagerly partakes in the culture of the big city to the east and the recreation of the forests to the west. With sons in the arts, she has a special fondness for symphonic music concerts and art museums. She finds peace in a good book at a Northwoods getaway weekend, adventure in family visits to the east and west coasts, and satisfaction in a column well-written that reaches readers.