City Council Ponders 911 Calling Fee

The Belmont (N. Calif.) city council will consider a 911 call fee at its October meeting, although the police department says it hasn’t decided if it even supports the idea. Council vice president Bill Dickenson proposed says the idea is to limit the number of 911 calls that the comm center handles, although the proposal is structured to impose a fee on those locations that generate the highest number of police department responses. Confusing the issue is that many of the high-response locations are schools, motels and other locations where crimes or other incidents are actually occurring, and that the council proposal doesn’t include any pro-active response by the police department to provide problem-solving at the locations. Read more here.