A joint committee of the Wisconsin legislature has revised a proposal to increase and modify the state’s 911 surcharge, allowing the funds to be used for projects unrelated to 911 and comm centers. Originally the legislators were considering a bill to increase the surcharge from 16¢ a month on landline phone to 75¢ a month on both landline and cellular lines. The bill would also have created a state 911 plan, advistory board and 911 coordinator. Now, the Joint Finance committee amended the bill to eliminate all the plan, board and coordinator, and to change the name of the fee from “911 fee” to “police and fire protection fee.” The changes were apparently made to avoid any conflict with federal legislation that withholds 911 grant funding from jurisdictions that raid their 911 surcharge funds.

A Dane County (Wisc.) circuit judge has dismissed three elements of a lawsuit filed against the county and its 911 employees by the family of Brittany Zimmermann, but the key claim of negligence in handling a 911 remain. Zimmerman was murdered inside her apartment in April 2008, and someone from the apartment made a 911 call. However, since the call was interrupted, calltaker Rita Gahagan didn’t enter an incident into CAD to have officers investigate. On Tuesday Judge Maryann Sumi took action to dismiss the family’s claims against county for not properly funding the comm center. Sumi said the county was protected from liability by state law which provides immunity to government officials for “discretionary” decisions. Sumi also dismissed actions against county administrator Kathleen Falk and Gahagan as individuals, since the lawsuit claims no acts outside their scope of employment. Lastly, Sumi ruled that Zimmermann’s boyfriend Jordan Gonnering cannot be included on the lawsuit for emotional distress, saying state law doesn’t allow such claims by non-family members. The key element of the lawsuit, mishandling of the 911 call, remains. No suspect has been arrested in the case. Gahagan requested a transfer before the incident, and now works for another county agency.

A strange call from a man to a Penn. medical center telephone operator sparked an intensive search that finally led to the arrest of a man in Texas on multiple charges. The man called the Univ. of Pennsylvania Medical Center to say he had killed two persons, and demanded money to prevent further deaths. Pittsburgh dispatchers tried to trace the call, while tracking down an address the man gave. The address wasn’t located locally, so dispatchers expanded their search to surrounding communities, until the caller’s cellular phone number led to–Texas. The man was demanding that money be sent to a Western Union office on “Forward Street,” and that information led dispatchers to call Newton (Tex.) police. Officers in the tiny town arrived in a residential area–no Westsern Union around–and tracked down…Carl Forward. NPD said Mr. Forward was a local bank fraud suspect. Read the entire account here.

A pharmaceutical company’s attempt to launch a new “white powder” form of aspirin by sending sample through the mail could catch citizens off-guard, and generate 911 calls to comm centers. An e-mail alert from APCO says that comm centers should review their policies on handling reports of suspicious postal mail, and their resources for handling and referring such incidents. Bayer Healthcare sent over 33,500 pieces of mail containing Bayer Quick Release Crystals, which has been sold in Europe but is new to the U.S. The crystals are packaged an appropriately labeled and sealed foil package. However, officials say some recipients may become suspicious and dial 911. APCO has also issued resources to help agencies prepare for this year’s hurricane season, which officially began June 1st.

When the Essex (Mass.) Regional Retiremenet Board voted to move a full-benefits retirement for dispatchers from 65 years-old to 60, they immediately began taking out money to pay for it from individual cities and entities within the county. But several of the affected towns, school and special districts haven’t yet accepted the reclassification of dispatchers to “signal operators,” which triggers the improved retirement plan. North Andover officials say they’ve not voted on the retirement change, but pays the Board about $2.5 million a year from employee contributions of from 5% to 11%. City officials say they shouldn’t be charged the new withholding rate until after they’ve voted “Yes” on the change. Read more about the plan here.

Today John Dejung begins his first day of work as director ofthe Dane County (Wisc.) 911 center, and will draw upon his 23 years in the Coast Guard, he told a newspaper reporter. The comm center is still the target of debate and criticism after three incidents that ended with deaths. He leaves behind lots of positive reviews from 12 years at the Minneapolis (Minn.) comm center, including the I-35 bridge collapse in Aug. 2007. Read more about Dejung’s arrival here.

A man involved in a domestic dispute fled from Mower County (Minn.) police on a bicycle first, but then circled back and stole a Austin PD police K9 unit called to assist in the search. During the 120 mph pursuit of the patrol car by deputies, suspect Jeremy Winkel radioed dispatchers, asking what would happen to the suspect–himself–when deputies arrested him. Dispatchers tried to convince him to pull over, but he crossed into Iowa and evaded spike strips laid out by the Iowa State Patrol. He then radioed dispatchers again, trying to arrange a surrender at the Northwood (Iowa) fire station. He finally pulled in front of the fire station, 38 miles from where the chase began. Deputies say Winkel struck and killed a dog during the pursuit, but otherwise avoided any accidents.

The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records (OOR) has ordered York County’s 911 center to include locations in any citizen requests for response time logs, after a citizen appealed the county’s refusal to provide such information, claiming it was confidential under state law. The state’s Right to Know Law specifically prohibits the release of telephone and radio logging tapes, limiting information only to what the legislature called “time response logs.” The issue on appeal before the OOR was whether incident locations are considered part of the “time response log” record. In an opinion released last week, the OOR agreed with the citizen who appealed the county’s decision, saying that without a location, response time logs are useless in determining if emergency units are arriving in a timely fashion. Therefore, the OOR said that locations must be part of the time response logs that comm centers are required to release. The county is considering an appeal of the OOR’s decision. Download (pdf) the entire OOR decision here, and note the use of a NENA definition that does not include an incident location.

Just two months before New York City’s fire dispatchers are scheduled to move from their borough-based comm centers to a downtown center and Bronx-based backup, criticism is being raised about the plan, sparking more debate. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and fire officials say the new center is ready and that operations will be improved by the move. But Staten Island politicians are raising the issue of local control and knowledge–they say dispatchers miles away won’t have the intimate and detailed knowledge of dispatchers who are within the borough for which they are dispatching. David Rosenzweig, president of the Uniformed Fire Alarm Dispatchers Benevolent Association, says that police dispatchers are not competent to handle telephone calls involving fires, and received just six hours of training, compared to the 90-days received by fire dispatchers. A city council member representing Staten Island has introduced a bill to keep dispatchers within their own boroughs, and a rally was held outside the Staten Island fire comm center to protest the move. Read more here, and watch a TV report here.

Callers along the Willamette River in Portland (Ore.) heard yelling and voices and dialed 911 for help, but it took almost 40 minutes for water rescue craft to be launched to search for two children thrown from a bridge by their mother. Amanda Jo Stott-Smith, 31, is under arrest for the death of her 4 year-old son, and the attempted murder of her 7 year-old daughter. Police believe the incident is related to a custody battle with her ex-husband. Dispatchers at the Office of Emergency Communications first classified the 1:19 a.m. incident as a “disturbance” and didn’t consider it involved anyone in the river, officials say. Only after police arrived and couldn’t locate the yelling did they request a fire department boat response, which took another 20 minutes. A houseboater located the children around 2 a.m. and brought the two children to shore. Read more about the question of a river response here.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle’s proposed budgeet includes taking $100 million from the state’s 911 surcharge fund for two years to help cover “police and fire protection” affected by a $1.6 billion budget shortage. The budget also proposes killing a plan to increase the current 16¢ monthly 911 surcharge fee to 75¢ per month. If the budget is adopted, the diversion would make the state ineligible for any part of $43.5 million in federal grant funding, critics of the plan point out. The state collects about $7 million a year from the 911 surcharge. According to Dane County officials, they would have to replace $557,000 now received from the state surcharge fund each year. A legislative committee could decide this week on the 911 portion of the budget. Read more here.

The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) has posted a proposed standard “Core Competencies of Public Safety Communications Manager/Director” for public comments, part of its on-going program to establish industry-established methods of operation. The proposed standard is “one of the most aggressive tasks” that the association’s Call Center Standards Committee has undertaken, says chair Julie Righter. The 37-page document covers six sections, including “managing self and personal skills,” “facilitating change” and “achieving results.” Download (pdf) the proposal here and submit comments by June 22nd.

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International has revealed its 2009 Public-Safety Communications Award winners, which will be handed out during the opening sessions of the group’s annual conference this August in Las Vegas. According to a press release, those honored, “have demonstrated the highest levels of personal and professional conduct and performance in the line of duty.” The recipients are:

• Telecommunicator of the Year – Loanne Travess, Grays Harbor Communications E9-1-1, Aberdeen (WA)
• Trainer of the Year – Stephan Bunker, Maine 9-1-1 Bureau, Augusta (ME)
• Information Technologist of the Year – Scott Sipe, Grays Harbor Communications E9-1-1, Aberdeen (WA)
• Radio Frequency Technologist of the Year – David King, City of Bakersfield, Bakersfield (CA)
• Line Supervisor of the Year – Patrick Healy, Arlington Fire Department/Communications Services, Arlington (TX)
• Communications Center Director of the Year – Jerald Bleck, Tri-Com Central Dispatch, St. Charles (IL)

The family of a murdered Great Falls (Mont.) man say that had a dispatcher sent police units in response to their very first 911 call, the victim would still be alive. Jerod Williams was strangled to death by acquaintance Jaydee Haagenson just before 1:30 a.m., police say, but his family members say they dialed 911 and a non-emergency number at 9:44 p.m. to say Haagenson was violating his parole and being violent. An unnamed dispatcher at the Great Falls/Cascade County Dispatch Center questioned the caller, but concluded that since the caller wasn’t at the house, police couldn’t respond. Haagenson’s father later called to provide more first-person information, and the dispatcher then transferred him to a watch commander on an untaped telephone line, and police never responded. Only later when Williams’ body was found did police arrive. Comm center manager Pam Johnstone defended the dispatcher, saying she followed procedure, but that “a little bit of training” needs to occur with dispatchers. Johnstone told a reporter that dispatchers have to make quick decisions on how to use limited resources based on the information they have, and can’t predict the future. Read the full story and listen to the telephone calls here. Update: An internal investigation found that neither the dispatcher nor a shift commander mishandled the family’s calls for assistance. Read the follow-up story here. (more…)

A missing 62 year-old Carrollton (Ohio) man who may have been suicidal fled sheriff’s deputies when they arrived to investigate a disturbance at his home, and the deputies learned they couldn’t track the man down using his cellular phone because Verizon demanded $20 to reinstate the man’s phone service. Sheriff Dale Williams says the man was at-risk and fled into a rural area. He called Verizon, but learned they wouldn’t assist until someone paid the man’s overdue phone bill. Williams was in the process of paying the bill when search teams found the man unconscious. Read more about the incident here.