Excerpts from pjstar.com:
The East Peoria public safety communications and dispatch center dispatched its final call on May 20. Since then, all 911 calls that originate in East Peoria have been handled by the dispatch center in Morton. The switch-over was the culmination of a 2015 state mandate that all Illinois counties with a population of less than 250,000 that have a single Emergency Telephone System Board and more than two dispatch centers to reduce that number by half. Tazewell County met all the criteria and that meant that four county dispatch centers would be reduced to two. East Peoria and Washington would close and move all dispatch operations for those two cities, and every smaller law enforcement department and fire protection department and district in the jurisdiction to the beefed-up center in Morton.
The space in the front of East Peoria’s Public Safety building that was occupied 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year by the 12-person, three-shift staff of dispatchers, is now home to two records clerks who work regular business hours only on weekdays. They can answer walk-up questions if they are around, but it’s not their job to be the public’s link to law enforcement.
