Fire Commissioners Mull Tests of County 911

This article appeared in the Townsman, July 31, 2008 edition

Woodstock, July 24 2008

The Woodstock Fire District Commission in a unanimous vote during their monthly meeting at the Company One firehouse decided to conduct tests on pagers tuned into the Ulster County 911 radio frequency to see if better communications can be established with areas of Woodstock that presently have trouble receiving radio signals from the Town's tower located at the Town Offices on Comeau Drive. Areas particularly suffering poor reception are Zena, Willow and Wittenberg. In years past these areas had been adequately served, but it is believed that increased foliage has dampened the radio signal's propagation. As a result, volunteer firemen and rescue squad members in those areas described often cannot be alerted to an emergency by the Woodstock Emergency Dispatch service, which depends on the Comeau tower to page them.

The County 911 maintains four emergency communications towers throughout the county, and it is believed that one or more of these towers could serve more if not all of Woodstock's needs for emergency pager alerts.

The Woodstock Police Department, according to Police Chief Harry Baldwin, does not have the same problem as the fire department with radio communications. He attributed the better communications to the police department's use of "high band" frequency, while the fire department relies on "low band" frequency. Also, the police department years ago installed a repeater, a device to relay radio signals from one location to another, on the Moncure tower on top of Overlook Mountain, to facilitate radio communication.

Fire Chief Mike Densen said the fire department's main area of concern was getting pagers to work. Although some of the fire department's hand-held radio devises for voice communications may not work in some areas of the town, the (higher powered) truck radios almost always did.

In attendance at the meeting were several employees of the Woodstock Emergency Dispatch service, including department head Laurie Hamilton. It is one of the department's duties to send pager alerts to volunteer fire personnel, and there was concern over the ramifications of the County's possible occasional failure to do so. According to Densen, "If we go with the County it will be in their ball park; if there is a complaint it will be their problem." Dispatchers were also concerned with the protocol once the County had sent out pager alerts. The fire commissioners seemed to go out of their way in an attempt to assure the dispatchers that voice communications would still be routed through their department and that their role in emergency situations would not be diminished even if the County were to assume sending out pager alerts. 'This is to get our radios to work [better], not our personnel," said commissioner Don Allen. "If we can co-exist with 911 it will enhance all our emergency services, including highway," said commissioner A J Rose. "There is no attempt to disrupt the livelihood of our dispatchers."

Since the enhancement of the County 911 emergency service earlier this decade it has been the concern of local emergency dispatch services in the several townships that maintain them that their departments would be seen as redundant and eventually phased out.

In Woodstock's case there are four to five full-time dispatchers and several part timers to maintain the service that operates from the Woodstock Town Hall twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There is usually at least one dispatcher on duty for each shift, although in times of extreme crisis, for instance the 1999 hurricane Floyd event, there can be more. The service, which is reached by dialing 679 2422, dispatches fire and police. The Woodstock Rescue Squad, which provides para-medical services and emergency medical transport and operates under the auspices of the Fire District as Company Five, is also dispatched by the service. The 2008 Woodstock township annual budget allocated $198,000 from the general fund for the service, almost all of which is salaries. This amount does not include benefits.

For many years the fire district, which has taxing authority independent of the Woodstock town board, contributed one-third of the total paid in salaries to the Town for its share of the dispatch service. This year such contribution amounted to approximately $63,000. There have been rumblings in the past that the fire district may abandon the local dispatch service and go entirely with the County 911, which would cost it nothing. However, the commissioners at this meeting seemed to go out of their way to dispel such notion.

Even if the fire district were to do so, Woodstock would still want to maintain the current dispatch service for the town, according to Chief Baldwin. "The County 911 only responds to emergencies," he explained. Complaints of noise, errant dogs, dead animals on the road, to name some situations annoying to the public, but which do not constitute an emergency will be ignored by the County 911, explained Baldwin. Also, the local dispatch service receives numerous "walk-in" complaints that would not be handled by the County 911. In short, according to Baldwin, if the Town wants to maintain a 24/7 service to respond to all emergency and non-emergency matters that involve the police they will either have to maintain the current dispatch configuration, or pay for additional police officers to sit behind a desk to process complaints.

Dispatch salaries range from $15.00 to $18.00 per hour; police salaries range from $21.00 to $26.00. "Do the math," said Baldwin.

In other business, the fire commissioners voted unanimously to appoint Stuart Rothkoph to fill the vacancy created by the death of commissioner William Van Kleeck. Rothkoph previously announced he will step down at the end of the year and not run for the remaining 3 years of Van Kleeck's term when it comes up for special election this coming December. Before Rothkoph's appointment Duncan Wilson, Mike Lorenzo and Jim Hanson had been mentioned as possibilities to fill the seat. There remains the good prospect of Lorenzo and/or Hanson seeking election later this year. Commissioner Jim Brunner, whose five-year term expires at the end of the year, announced his intention to run again.