Dispatch Change Discussed In Sidney

Cheyenne County Communications Center Director Heidi Gillespie spoke Monday with the Cheyenne County commissioners about the Kimball Police Department potentially moving its dispatching services into the Cheyenne County Communications Center.

Gillespie said the move could be made easily with existing equipment, and changes to service coverage areas (like 9-1-1) would be updated at Lincoln for no charge to the county.

Kimball Police Chief Jose Ruiz was at the meeting and told the commissioners that their communications department entered into a mutual aid agreement with the Sidney Police Department and were able to get their radios synchronized together during the Oktoberfest Celebration in Sidney without any problems.

Commissioner Randy Miller asked questions to Ruiz about the legality of city police departments operating in other jurisdictions, and questions to County Attorney Paul Schaub about the legalities of these types of operations.

Schaub noted that there were mutual aid statutes in Nebraska that allowed municipal police departments to operate within other municipalities. The efforts are legal as long as there is an agreement between municipalities, and operations take place under emergency circumstances or in conjunction with large events, like an Oktoberfest Celebration.

Ruiz said that both departments got approval from both city councils, and have only worked together so far under special circumstances, like Oktoberfest. Chairman Darrell Johnson asked Ruiz if he could get a copy of the contract between the Kimball and Sidney police departments.

Commissioner Miller then asked Gillespie what kind of fee had been worked out with Kimball concerning the transfer of dispatch services, and Gillespie said that no payment terms had been worked out at this time. She added they need to move further in the process before payment negotiations start.

Miller said his main concern was that the Cheyenne County Communications Center is short-staffed and the workers there now are working extra hard to keep up. He said he was concerned that adding Kimball’s calls would be too much to handle.

Miller also commented that he wasn’t sure that the commissioners were the right body to make a final decision on this matter, and he believed the Emergency Communications Authority Board was the proper entity to make the ultimate decision.

Gillespie then said that she had presented the offer to the board and they have not made a decision as of yet. She said she wanted to have the commissioners’ input and to elevate the issue to give the public more of an opportunity to talk about the issue. Miller agreed and asked if anyone at the meeting wanted to talk about the issues, and several Kimball residents in attendance addressed the commissioners.

Kimball resident Austin Gardner said he would like to know if communications would work between the two departments, would they be sharing a channel frequency or would they create a unified channel between the departments? Gillespie said that initially they would use a shared channel and then most likely move forward and create a unified channel in the future.

Kimball resident Gabriel Miller said that a lot of people in Kimball do not understand this action. He also asked if Kimball had jurisdiction outside of the city. Ruiz reiterated that they would only be in Sidney or vice-versa when it was requested. As an example, Ruiz talked about how many officers are required to serve a warrant, especially if the service could possibly end in a confrontation with the person being served. Oftentimes, neither department has the officers on duty to spare to execute a warrant, and this example is supposed to be typical of the type of mutual aid the departments would conduct.

Gabriel Miller continued by saying that Kimball had to raise taxes to pay for police, and now they want to put Kimball police in Sidney. He also said dispatch is fine in Kimball and should not be moved to Sidney, and asked why it was so important to move dispatch. Ruiz responded that he wasn’t trying to be too critical, but the Kimball dispatcher did not have the experience level to manage the dispatch operation.

Ruiz also detailed structural issues that prevented effective dispatching, which could cause an emergency to be not handled correctly, or expose the city to lawsuits.

Kimball County Sheriff David Hottel was also in attendance and said the county was in a difficult financial position and changes to their system would be very costly, as the dispatch and jail communications systems are tied together.

Kimball resident Austin Gardner then asked if it was possible to get cost estimates for just 9-1-1 services being utilized versus all of the dispatching duties from Kimball being moved. The commissioners made no advisement either way and will wait for the Emergency Communications Authority Board’s recommendation