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Northwest takes over emergency dispatch
(by Maggie Fazeli Fard - February 06, 2008)
Shortly before 1 p.m. last Friday, a long awaited transition was complete. For the first time since 1946, emergency units were dispatched to Montvale,
Woodcliff
Lake and
Park Ridge from a non-Tri-Boro town.
Feb. 1 marked the official dismantling of Tri-Boro Dispatch, with police, fire and EMS calls now being handled exclusively by Northwest Bergen Central Dispatch in
Ridgewood .
“It’s been a long process,” said Montvale Mayor Roger Fyfe, who, as councilman in past years, served as the borough’s Tri-Boro Dispatch commissioner. “About two-and-a-half years ago, we got ourselves in the position to make significant investments in technology. We started mulling around with the idea to regionalize.”
In the summer of 2006, the Tri-Boro towns began to seriously look into their options: invest in technological improvement at the
Park Ridge dispatch center or contract the service out. They formed a Committee of Public Safety, which discovered that creating a state of the art dispatch center would cost an estimated $400,000, excluding annual operating and capital costs. The committee looked into regionalization with
Bergen
County , but were told that the county facility was two years away from completion. The third option was contracting services to
Northwest
Bergen
Central
Dispatch
Center , located in
Ridgewood , for an estimated cost of $430,000 before negotiations.
The Northwest option turned out to be the most viable and in April 2007, the switch to Northwest was official with a five-year contract.
Jeffrey Bader, a
Woodcliff
Lake councilman and Tri-Boro commissioner, estimated at the time that the cost to the three boroughs would be between $503,000 and $584,000 per year for the next five years. It had been estimated that it would cost more than $800,000 annually to continue operating the Tri-Boro system out of
Park Ridge ; the expected cumulative savings was estimated to be $1 million.
In addition to Montvale, Park Ridge, and
Woodcliff
Lake , Northwest answers 911 calls for Ridgewood, Glen Rock, Ramsey,
Franklin
Lakes , Oakland, Rutherford, River Edge,
New Milford , Oradell and Waldwick.
According to Fyfe, Northwest was “the logical place” for dispatching services, but it took a considerable amount of convincing to get everyone on board.
“It was a tender thing,” he said Friday. “There were third generation firemen and police officers. It was a real townie thing… Emergency services [personnel] weren’t excited about it but they worked their butts off to make it happen.”
Fyfe said that of Tri-Boro Dispatch’s four full-time employees, one moved, one retired and the other two were hired by Northwest.
He added that the Committee of Public Safety will continue to exist with the primary task of improving the
Park Ridge system “as a fall back.”
“We’re very confident that
Ridgewood will give everything they promised,” said Fyfe. “The technology is incredible. Each dispatcher has six screens. It tells emergency services everything the caller is willing to give. It’s absolutely astounding. It’s almost like science fiction. Duplicating that would be too expensive.”
Just hours into the switch, Fyfe reported that there have been “no problems so far,” but he said that if anything doesn’t go to the liking of officials, residents and emergency services personnel, nothing is set in stone. “Who knows in four or five years?” he said, noting that contracting services to the county may become a more realistic option.
Still, Fyfe is satisfied with the work that he and his fellow commissioners have done. “This is the most important and best thing I’ve been a part of. It’s important. It’s good for the community. It’s an all around good thing.”
Steven Lemongello contributed information to this article. Maggie Fazeli Fard's e-mail address is fazelifard@northjersey.com.
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