3rd Death Adds to Political Debate Over Center

The accidental death of a man from carbon monoxide poisoning has raised the political debate in Madison (Wisc.) even higher, with the incumbent county administrator claiming the Dane County 911 center did not mishandle the incident, and the candidate running for administrator saying it’s but another example of mismanagement. A 32 year-old man was found unconscious by police inside a car parked on a city street after a neighbor reported him slumped in his seat around 5 p.m. last Saturday. However, a neighbor called a non-emergency line at 10 a.m. to ask if it were legal to idle a car for 30 minutes in front of her house. County administrator Kathleen Falk said the unnamed male dispatcher who fielded the call properly answered the caller’s question, and no police response was required. But political candidate Nancy Mistele told reporters and ran TV ads saying the incident was mishandled, police should have responded, and that it’s another example of Falk’s mismanagement of the center. The Dane County center is already under fire for mishandling a 911 call from murder victim Brittany Zimmermann’s apartment, and for mis-classifying a 911 call reporting a fight that ended with a man’s death is a city park. Read more about the incident (with TV report) here and decide if the dispatcher should have asked questions, then read the “Fact Check” on Mistele’s political ads here. Also read a press release issued by the Mistele campaign here. Also browse the Falk and Mistele political Web sites for more ads and talk about the 911 center.