By Amy Carr
The Berkshire Eagle Staff
DALTON, Mass. — For now, coats of paint dry on newly reinforced walls inside the police station. But next month, fresh white walls will be accompanied with new high-tech dispatch equipment for the launch of the new $180,000 emergency communications center.
The state-mandated upgrade will transform and relocate the dispatch center from a small, outdated operation at the fire station on Flansburg Avenue to a renovated room in the Town Hall station, twice the size, with a new electrical service, 911 system and emergency generator. Dalton was one of 23 stations to receive a grant — $23,750 — in October for the renovations through the Executive Office of Public Safety in October.
‘Someone 24 hours a day’
“With the new system, we will have primary and backup answering positions, which will mean there is someone available at the station 24 hours a day,” said Police Chief John W. Bartels Jr. “They say this 911 stuff is really something. It’s all by computer, so it’s more efficient even in knowing where the manpower is at all times.”
The new communications center will open Dec. 20 and provide improvements in simplicity and efficiency as the answering point for police, fire, ambulance, highway, cemetery, water and animal control departments. The technology is almost identical to the system in place in the Pittsfield Police Department, capable of visually tracking emergency calls on a geographical grid, transmitting radio signals over “dead zones” and powering the entirety of Town Hall with its new emergency generator, according to Officer Gerald J. Cahalan Jr.
Although cell phone calls still will be routed to Dalton through Northampton, a practice still standard for all but three major area cities, Cahalan said there is no comparison between the new visual tracking system and the old verbal protocol.
Visualizing the situation
“With the old cell phone traces, we used to have to hammer to find out where the callers were,” said Cahalan. “Now we can do it in a matter of seconds. It’s cool because you can visualize the situation a little bit.”
Town Manager Kenneth E. Walto hopes that the communications center upgrade will help the town visualize larger renovations to the 115-year-old Town Hall.
He said that the new emergency communications center is phase one in the lengthy Town Hall renovation project; the second phase of the project will be a $1 million exterior renovation that will include roof repair and brick work. The final phase — interior renovation — will follow.
Bartels, anxious for the completion of the new dispatch center inside Town Hall, said the deteriorating exterior of the building will benefit greatly from upcoming projects.
“Town Hall is a beautiful building, but it’s an old building, and it needs a lot of work,” he said. “I don’t think there has been any renovation there since the ‘70s. It’s in a sad state of affairs, and now that we’ve started something at the station, I hope we can continue to do it with the rest of Town Hall.”
The appropriation of money for the design, engineering and construction of Town Hall renovations is on the agenda for a special town meeting Nov. 19.
Copyright 2007 The Berkshire Eagle