Joint Dispatching Services Likely To Wait Until March 7

The West Central Dispatching Center will be operational as far as employees are concerned Tuesday, March 1 as planned, but administrators for the participating municipalities have agreed to delay opening the central hub that will house the operation at the Town and Country Municipal Center until March 7.

That decision came Wednesday at a meeting of the WCDC Board of Directors, where officials reported phone lines and furniture for the new entity would not be installed until March 2 some of the carpeting would not be finished until Monday.

A total of 10 dispatchers have been hired so far, with offers out to two more candidates this week. Earlier plans called for a staff of 13, but in an effort to save some costs, the center will employ part-time employees to fill roughly 27 hours per week. WCDC General Manager Robert Heimberger said all but two of the full-time dispatchers are coming from the current ranks of Town and Country, Frontenac or Creve Coeur dispatchers, and that no one from those agencies who wanted to join the WCDC were turned away. WCDC dispatchers will be assigned to each of the three communities starting Tuesday until authorities are ready to switch over phone lines and reprogram radios. That process could take up to two hours for each agency on the day of the switch, now planned for March 7.

Administrators say they are open to the idea of adding new municipalities to the agency. In the case of Creve Coeur, the WCDC will only handle dispatching duties for police department calls.