By Shawn Skager-The Courier Herald
The Sumner City Council was expected to vote on whether to fund a $49,000 study to assess options for the city’s emergency communications center at its Tuesday meeting.
Introduced at a recent study session, the council was asked to consider paying ADCOMM Engineering Company and Karen Reed Consulting to study the center and review the current condition of the communications center, evaluate the future growth and technology requirements and determine whether options for consolidation with another jurisdiction or communications center in the region would be beneficial to the city, its residents, its emergency services and employees at the center.
The study also will determine the demands of upcoming technology mandates, which will require the city to meet federal guidelines to reband emergency communications to 800 MHz.
The study of the current system will evaluate dispatch call volumes and work loads, staffing levels and the conditions of the current technology in use at the center - including what the life expectancy of the current equipment is.
Those results would then be compared with future growth projections as well as changes in regional, county state and federal requirements for communications technology. The study would deliver an estimate of what it would cost the city to operate the center for the next three to five years.
Finally, the study would look at which options would be most feasible for the future of the center: operating as a stand-alone center; expanding to provide service to other cities such as Buckley or Orting; and contracting with other communications centers such as Puyallup, Fife, Valley Com and the Law Enforcement Support Agency (LESA).
Currently LESA provides support to the Tacoma Police Department and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. Valley Com provides support to South King County cities such as Federal Way, Black Diamond, Auburn and Kent. Puyallup provides dispatch service to Bonney Lake - which contracted with Sumner until April 2008.
The communications center study is similar to previous studies contracted by the city, including one that evaluated the efficiency of the Sumner Municipal Court and one that determined that it would be more cost effective for the city to annex into East Pierce Fire and Rescue.
Results of the vote were unavailable at press time.
Reach Shawn Skager at sskager@courierherald.com or 360-802-8208.
