Grosse Pointe Shores-Farms Dispatch Consolidation Complete

The final major step in is complete but officials continue working out small glitches that could only be discovered upon removing dispatchers from the Shores center.

Monday marked the first day the Shores was officially without a 24-hour dispatch center in the Shores municipal building. The but to ensure no calls were missed dispatchers remained in the Shores center for a period of overlap.

Public Safety Director Stephen Poloni told the council Tuesday that the transition has overall been smooth but some small glitches are being discovered and handled. The glitches relate to the phone tree answering system that is now in place in Grosse Pointe Shores municipal building and are not related to emergency calls.

As an example, Poloni said a few Shores residents that called early in the week hung up under the mistaken belief they had misdialed because the dispatcher answered 911.

Dispatchers have been asked to alter their greeting to add Shores after Farms to ensure callers know, he said. While this seems easy enough, Poloni said with a chuckle, it will take time for dispatchers who have said the same thing for 25 years to alter it but they are working on it.

Shores officers are also still receiving more training on the new computerized system they must now use to be compatible with the Farms and most other police departments. The technology element of the consolidation is a significant change as previously the officers did not have computers in their car and the dispatchers did a great deal of the administrative work, including much of a report. 

Poloni publicly thanked Sgt. Scott Rohr on Tuesday, saying his knowledge related to technology, computers and software helped in the transition and likely saved the city thousands for IT customer service visits.

During business hours, an administrative employee in Grosse Pointe Shores will still answer the non-emergency public safety calls. If she is unable to answer it within four rings, the call will automatically go to the joint dispatch center on Kerby Road, said City Manager Brian Vick.

After hours, the non-emergency administrative public safety line will ring four times and then ring in the joint dispatch center, he said. If a caller is looking for voicemail, the dispatcher will be able to connect them, he said.

The hours are as follows: 

• 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday an employee will be present 
• 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday an employee will be present

A large sign dominates the window behind which the Shores dispatchers sat and through which they dealt with the public. The sign is put up overnights and two telephones are now on the counter.

One telephone, red in color, is labeled as the 911 emergency phone. The other is beige and is labeled as the non-emergency telephone. Users simply pick up the headset of the telephone and it automatically dials into the joint dispatch center.

The consolidation is the first among the Pointes and is the result of a study by an all Pointes Public Safety ad hoc committee. The with the ultimate goal of total consolidation when the finances are looking up.

The same committee most recently . The group is scheduled to convene soon to review the expert's findings, committee spokesman and Manager Pete Dame said.

—the Park, the Woods or the Farms. Each have made offers to the City that are under review by Dame and soon-to-be retiring Public Safety Director James Fox.

This story was updated Thursday Oct. 20, 2011 at 4:25 p.m. to include more specific hours in which an administrative employee will be answering non-emergency Public Safety calls from the Grosse Pointe Shores municipal building.