South Snohomish County’s 911 dispatch center SNOCOM welcomes back a familiar face: Fire District 1.
The district’s 2003 departure from the agency caused some hard feelings with the other SNOCOM members – the cities of Edmonds, Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace and Brier and the town of Woodway, which were left to foot the bill.
It’s partly because of those hard feelings that SNOCOM director Steve Perry said its board decided to allow the district to come back on a five-year contract at first, not be a represented member on the board like it was before.
“We were troubled to see them leave and felt it was a bad choice but respectful that they can make that choice,” Perry said, “but right now we’re just really glad to have them back.”
Since 2003, SNOCOM has also picked up the Mill Creek Police Department as a member and in January 2005 add Mukilteo Fire and Police Departments to its family.
The good news for the other member cities is that by adding more agencies, they enjoy some financial savings.
Adding Mukilteo and the district back means the other member cities won’t have a fee increase for 2005, Perry said.
According to Asst. Chief Brad Reading of Fire District 1, which has its headquarters in south Everett and serves most of the unincorporated areas of Southwest Snohomish County, SNOCOM is just a better fit for them than SNOPAC. SNOPAC is a larger dispatch agency which serves the more central and northern area of Snohomish County.
Reading said the two main reasons why the district made the change in 2003 was because the former administration felt the change was necessary, and the district was trying to improve its literal communication with its neighboring Fire District 7, something, he said, which is still in the works. Fire District 7, which serves the city of Mill Creek, contracts with SNOPAC.
The major driving force for the return was service levels, Reading said.
“We received a higher level of service at SNOCOM,” Reading said.
In addition, Reading said if District 1 stayed at SNOPAC it wouldn’t have been able to use its already paid for new 800 megahertz radio system until 2006.
“Also this is one thing that the firefighters are all totally for,” he said. “SNOPAC was just too busy and so we weren’t getting the level of service we were used to at SNOCOM.”
Reading said the contract proposal for dispatch service with SNOCOM is roughly $390,000 for the first year. Neither the district’s board of commissioners nor SNOCOM’s board has approved of the contract officially as of yet, but plans to within the next couple of weeks.
“It’s less than we were originally quoted by SNOPAC,” Reading said. Adding, “we’re just glad to be coming back.”
Editors note: Regardless of the dispatch agency used by local public safety officials, when someone has an emergency they should call 911 and crews will be sent appropriately.
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