SIDNEY — The next generation of 911 has launched in Sidney and Shelby County.
The installation of a new 911 system for the city of Sidney and Shelby County Sheriff’s Office went live Wednesday. The city’s system launched at 9:30 a.m. and the Sheriff’s Office system later in the day. The system will also be launched later this week at Bellefontaine Police Department and Logan County Sheriff’s Office.
“The transition went smoothly,” said Sidney Police Chief Will Balling.
Final work was completed on the changeover Tuesday night by the city’s IT department, AirBus and Century Link, he said.
“This has been a two-year project,” said Balling. “We were notified by our former 911 service that we were nearing the end-of-life for our equipment.”
At the same time, said Balling, the state of Ohio announced the next generation 911 system for law enforcement. This will include texting and video in the future.
“With the new system, we’ll be ready for it (texting and video),” said Balling.
The VESTA 911 geo-diverse system was manufactured by AirBus. The cost of the system is $429,327.85, which has been divided up equally between the four agencies — Sidney Police, Shelby County Sheriff, Bellefontaine Police and Logan County Sheriff. Each agency was able to save approximately $150,000 each by purchasing it as one entity.
“This is a good day for 21st century law enforcement,” said Shelby County Sheriff John Lenhart. “This partnership is excellent for the citizens we serve.
“We had always wondered what if we went down, who would take care of us,” Lenhart said. “Six months ago, our electric went out and our radios went out. For some reason, the generator didn’t kick in. We were down for three hours. With the new system, Sidney will be our backup and then calls will go to Bellefontaine and Logan County Sheriff. It’s a good deal for everyone.”
“This was a huge savings to the taxpayers,” said Balling.
There are two hubs with the 911 center, said Balling. If something happens in Sidney/Shelby County, then the hub in Logan County would pick up all emergency 911 calls from Shelby County.
“If we had a critical emergency, such as an earthquake,” said Balling, “and the system went down, immediately the (Logan County) dispatchers would pick up our calls.
“If our system would be down for more than an hour, I’d be able send our dispatchers there (Logan County) and they could answer the 911 calls.”
With the system that just went offline, the overflow 911 calls rolled over to the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, said Balling. Now they calls, if dispatch gets overwhelmed with 911 calls, can roll over to Logan County after the local sheriff’s office.
“With the ability to link out in four areas, we’re seeing a 20-25 mile range versus the current 2 mile range,” said Balling if the system goes down due to a critical emergency.
Funding for Sidney’s upgrade has come from the 911 surcharge which is placed on all cell phones and the department’s “rainy day” fund.
“We’ve began the planning process five years ago,” said Balling. “We’ve been saving for today and we’re using our rainy day savings.”
“This is a real savings to the taxpayer,” said Sidney Mayor Mike Barhorst. “We now have the redundancy if a unit goes down, the calls will go somewhere else. We looked at the public safety and that’s the key to this system.
“The city has been fiscally responsible to the taxpayers,” Barhorst said. “Each department has to save money each year for purchases such as this.”
Lenhart said his department has been saving for four years for this upgrade.
“About 27 cents from the monthly phone bill goes to 911,” said Lenhart. “I started saving it four years ago and we saved $150,000 over those four years. So that’s how we paid for this. The citizens paid for it out of their monthly phone bills.”
Lenhart said when he returned to the Sheriff’s Office in 2012, one of the first things he did was replace the dispatch center, which was installed in 1990-91 when he was sheriff before.
“We’re about as techie as we can get to serve in emergencies,” said Lenhart.
He also looks forward to the day when the system can receive texts and photos from 911 callers.
“The picture will shows up on the screen will help the dispatcher decide what fire and rescue vehicles they should send out.”
Balling tipped his hat to the city’s IT department.
“Joel Glass is the director and he spent hundreds of hours working on the project. He had many 12 to 16 hour days to make today happen,” said Balling. Glass is also shared with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office IT department.
Lenhart also thanked the city of Sidney from the administration to government and the commissioners, along with the city of Bellefontaine and Logan County Sheriff’s Office for their support of the 911 upgrade.
“I’d like to thank Bob Geuy and Joel Glass,” said Lenhart. “They are our techie guys.”
Balling stressed that the dispatch systems are not combining in the county.
“This is a sharing of equipment,” said Balling, “not a combined dispatch system. Our dispatchers know the area. When people call in, they’ll recognize their voices.”
All 911 calls from landlines in the city of Sidney ring in at the police department, said Balling. Cell phones that are operated within the city limits also go to the city police department.
When the city began looking at new 911 systems and the possibility of doing a joint partnership with other agencies, Bellefontaine was the first place Balling called.
“Chief (Brandon) Standley came on board with it right away,” said Balling. “In the future, we can add other 911 centers to ours. This will be a cost savings for the cities and the counties. We will also see more diversity and lower costs.”
Balling said the state of Ohio has three or four other areas going the same route as Sidney/Shelby County and Bellefontaine/Logan County.
“The company has said we’re a test site and a role model,” said Balling. “It’s good to be No. 3 or 4 because the bugs have been worked out and we can move forward.”
Capt. Mike Rosengarten, who oversees operations for the dispatchers, said Air Bus has done a great job working with the department and dispatchers to get the new system installed.
“The staff has also been flexible in working with them,” said Rosengarten.
Rosengarten said the partnership between the four law enforcement agencies reinforces the city’s stance.
“We’re willing to work with anybody,” said Rosengarten. “We are a band of brothers. Everyone steps us when someone calls 911.”
Balling said the department receives between 10,000 to 12,000 emergency calls annually.
The city’s dispatchers went through training prior to the system going live Wednesday morning.
“It’s real similar to what we have now,” said Balling. An additional computer screen is at each dispatch station for upgraded system.
“Some of the hardware you can see and it looks like glorified VCRs,” said Balling. “But a lot of it is fiber optics. Once everyone in the state has the fiber optics, which is a couple of years away, then you’ll see the text and video being added to the 911 system.”
Balling predicts that the current equipment will be good for 10 to 15 years before it requires another upgrade.
