All 9-1-1 emergency calls placed from cellular phones in Oxford Township will continue to be routed to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Dispatch Center as they have since the early 1990s.
Township officials last week voted unanimously to direct Supervisor Bill Dunn to send a letter to both the sheriff’s department and village “reinforcing the township’s position” that it wishes to continue cellular 9-1-1 call service through the county.
The township’s action was the result of the village’s request to have all 9-1-1 calls placed from cell phones in Oxford Township rounted through the village dispatch center, according to Dunn, who received his information from Undersheriff Mike McCabe.
Since Oct. 11, 1992, all 9-1-1 cell calls “north of M-59” (which includes the Oxford area) have been automatically routed to county dispatch, according to Christine Russell, chief of communications for the sheriff’s department. Calls south of M-59 are automatically routed to the Michigan State Police.
Dunn said he discussed the village’s request with McCabe, who “didn’t think it was a good idea.”
The village’s Head Dispatcher Tony Van Houten explained that the request to take over wireless 9-1-1 calls originated from the county.
A Nov. 6, 2003 letter from Oakland County 9-1-1 Coordinator Patricia Coates sent to all the local 9-1-1 coordinators in the county, which includes Van Houten, explained that the State Police’s “ultimate plan is to discontinue receiving and transferring” wireless 9-1-1 calls south of M-59.
“Their plan is to have all the calls received directly at local PSAPs (Public Safety Answering Points), with only those calls requiring MSP response being transferred back to their dispatch center,” Coates wrote.
With the letter, Coates attached a survey asking local PSAPs if they would like to directly receive all the wireless 9-1-1 calls within their jurisdictions.
In a Jan. 19 phone interview, Coates confirmed she sent this letter and survey to the 30 PSAPs throughout the county, including Oxford.
Because more local PSAPs were requesting to take over their wireless calls, Coates said she figured she would ask everyone what they wanted to handle.
Van Houten said at first he rejected the idea due to the uncertainty over whether the township would continue contracting for village dispatch.
However, once that issue was resolved and it was decided to stay with local dispatch, VanHouten sent a Dec. 23 e-mail to county indicating that the village dispatch would be interested in receiving 9-1-1 wireless calls in Oxford and requesting another survey.
Van Houten sent the survey back to county indicating the village would like to directly receive all the wireless 9-1-1 calls in the township and village.
Coates explained the township’s recent decision overrides Van Houten’s request because under state law “the actual community is the decison-maker,” the governing body decides who will answer their 9-1-1 calls, both land-line and wireless.
In other words, 9-1-1 wireless calls within the township will continue to be answered by county dispatch per the township’s Jan. 14 resolution.
However, all the 9-1-1 land-line calls in the township and village still automatically go to the village dispatch center.
McCabe said the reason he informed Dunn about the village’s request was because “the village should have contacted the township and asked them” first because “the township decides where those calls go.”
Coates and McCabe noted the village can still request to handle all the 9-1-1 wireless calls within the village limits only. When asked if he will do that, Van Houten replied, “Absolutely.”
Supervisor Dunn invited Russell and Capt. Barry Zeeman to the Jan. 14 meeting to address the board about the possibility of changing where the township’s 9-1-1 wireless calls are sent.
Russell explained to the board the disadvantages of such a change and how the sheriff’s dispatch is “much more prepared to handle the impact of” 9-1-1 cell calls because it’s done so since 1992.
She noted a national statistic that 80 percent of 9-1-1 calls are calls for law enforcement-related services.
However, Russell stated that national statistic “would be higher locally.”
“It’s probably more like 90 percent,” she said.
Russell pointed out that since all the land-line 9-1-1 calls in Oxford Township and Village automatically go to the village dispatch, there’s a “built-in delay” because the call has to be transferred to the sheriff’s dispatch, which “leads to more delay” for police response.
Russell explained that processing a 9-1-1 cell call “takes longer” because the dispatcher has to determine the caller’s location, whereas with a land-line call, the name and address appear on the screen.
She noted that some cell users don’t know exactly where they’re at when they place their call.
Answering 9-1-1 cell calls has a “cost impact,” according to Russell, because it’s possible more staffing could be needed to answer more calls.
She said when an emergency happens on the road for example, dispatch is “flooded” with cell calls from passers-by. “For a short burst, you’re very busy.”
There must be an adequate number of dispatchers prepared because “every call must be answered,” Russell said.
Because cellular signal “bounce off towers,” Russell said county dispatch has occasionally received calls from Windsor and Grand Rapids.
Although the calls aren’t from their area, dispatchers must still be prepared to “find out in a timely manner” the proper agency to transfer those calls to, Russell said.
Dispatchers must also be prepared for “unintentional wireless calls,” meaning when a button on a cell phone is accidentally pushed and a 9-1-1 call is placed, unbeknownst to the phone’s owner.
“It really ties up 9-1-1 dispatch” because they “don’t know if it’s a true emergency,” Russell said. Such calls are “very frequent” and “take up a lot of time.”
In order to reroute all the 9-1-1 cells calls in Oxford to the village dispatch, Russell said all the local towers would have to be reprogrammed to do that.
And because cell towers “don’t follow township lines,” village dispatch would have to be prepared to possibly take 9-1-1 cell calls from surrounding areas such as Addison, Brandon, Orion and Lapeer.
“You can’t put borders on space,” she said.