BY GARTH STAPLEY
Modesto Focus
People calling 911 won’t see any difference in responses involving Stanislaus County deputies next week, despite prior alarming predictions.
Dispatching will continue as normal for now because a new software system for most other public safety agencies throughout the county needs an upgrade and isn’t ready to be deployed, leaders learned Tuesday.
Sheriff Jeff Dirkse and his team expect eventually to break off and use a rival dispatch software providing jail and records management services specific to the Sheriff’s Department.
His dispute with the others prompted a painful June civil grand jury report as well as fears that the dispatch partnership known as Stanislaus Regional 911 could break up.
Because the sheriff’s team has refused to integrate its computers with the new one being brought on for the other partners, all involved have shared worries about slower response times come Sept. 22 – the date that the partners’ new software system was supposed to go live.
That might have affected anyone seeking help from Dirkse’s deputies in rural areas and unincorporated towns plus Riverbank, Patterson, Hughson and Waterford, which contract for police services through the Sheriff’s Department.
No idea when disputed new Stanislaus dispatch software will be operational
The new dispatch software system will be delayed indefinitely because of the needed upgrade, said Kasey Young, the dispatch center’s executive director. Young says that could be maybe 30 to 60 days, but even that’s not certain.
Talk of there being two dueling dispatch systems has caused some to speculate on nightmare scenarios for emergency response.
The image of deputies reverting to low-tech tactics – using pen and paper to write down addresses when digital devices in their patrol cars no longer “speak” to the dispatch system, for example – has created “a lot of stress and uncertainty,” County Supervisor Mani Grewal said. He also is a member of the Consolidated Emergency Dispatch Agency Commission, the overseer panel composed of Modesto and county elected officials.
Better outcomes in emergencies are associated with timely responses.
That the delay wasn’t raised until now, a week before the go-live date, belies reason, Grewal said in the commission’s Sept. 16 meeting.
In an Aug. 18 Modesto Focus article, the sheriff referred to predictions of slow responses as scare tactics. He and his team had consistently criticized the partners’ software choice, CentralSquare, saying other clients have had bad experiences.
After learning of the delay at the Sept. 16 meeting, Dirkse said, “I told you so.
“Until SR 911 gets its (stuff) together, it’s going to be status quo.”
The sheriff plans in time to turn to software his people helped to develop with Oracle, whose public safety client list can be counted on one hand.
CentralSquare’s client list exceeds 8,000, one reason Dirkse’s traditional allies – county administration and supervisors – oppose him on this issue.
Stanislaus Regional 911 dispatches for 24 partner agencies including Modesto police and fire, the county fire warden and county probation, and all other first-responder agencies in the county except Turlock, Oakdale, Ceres and Newman, which use other dispatch services.
