Excerpts from the Herald-News.com:
New Lenox board trustees approved an intergovernmental agreement Monday to establish a new consolidated 911 center at Will County’s new sheriff’s department complex, which currently is under construction. The Laraway Communications Center, to be included in the new $30 million complex at Laraway Road and Route 52 in Joliet, is expected to serve 31 government agencies. These include New Lenox and the New Lenox Fire Protection District, as well as Romeoville, Frankfort, the county’s sheriff’s department and the agencies served by the EASCOM center.
Heading the new center will be Brad Veerman, who currently is director of the Lincolnway Public Safety Communications Center, which at present services New Lenox. Lincolnway will close once the new center is operational.
The plans for the new center follow an unfunded state mandate effective at the beginning of last year requiring counties with populations between 250,000 and 1 million to consolidate and reduce dispatch centers by half. Will County will now have three centers, including the city of Joliet’s and WESCOM’s new Plainfield center.
Once approval is received from all interested parties, representatives from each of the agencies will meet Feb. 22 and elect an executive board, New Lenox Trustee Dave Smith said. Smith is chairman of the governance committee for the new entity and wrote its bylaws and the intergovernmental agreement.
The executive board will consist of seven members, including three representing police agencies, three representing fire agencies and a seventh member from the sheriff’s office, according to the agreement.
Smith said the village’s share of the annual $5.3 million budget will be $440,000, slightly more than its contribution to the Lincolnway center.
Each member agency’s share will be determined annually according to its volume of calls to the dispatch center. The center will house about 40 to 50 dispatchers and all 31 agencies are expected to be on board before the February meeting.
thanks Dennis
