East Haven Unveils $1.2 Million Emergency Dispatch Center

At a press conference Monday, Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. said back in January 2013, he directed his Assistant Director of Administration to begin as one of his highest priorities: the planning and implementation of combining the 9-1-1 Emergency Dispatch along with Police Dispatching into ONE Public Safety Emergency Dispatch Center.

Here are Mayor Maturo’s full remarks from Monday’s press conference:

The Planning Team that was created consisted of:
Assistant Director of Administration & Mgmt. Frank Gentilesco
Police Chief Brent Larrabee
Deputy Police Chief Edward Lennon
Fire Chief Doug Jackson
Assistant Fire Chief Chuck Licata
Finance Director Paul Rizza
Engineer and Director of Public Services Kevin White
Town’s Labor Attorney Frank Kolb
Administrative Assistant Marsha Maldonado (who joined this team in the final few months)

“That groups work not only consisted of finding a home that could adequately “house” the new department but they also were responsible for the many facets of: construction; site work; relocation of an existing department; new state of the art technology; coordination of a number of vendors (including telephone, radios, all new software and much more); personnel hiring and training of all dispatchers to obtain necessary certifications, etc,” Maturo said.

The new Center is housed in our previous Police Records Room which was relocated as you will see into another area of this building. And in between all of this: Mr. Gentilesco, Mr. Rizza and Attorney Kolb negotiated a new long term bargaining agreement for Local 248, our Public Safety Dispatchers. This was all in addition to each of these gentlemen and lady, performing all of their normal daily duties and responsibilities.”

As I think you will see in a bit, to this team that we assembled, I say thank you for a job very well done!

I would also like to thank:

Local 248, our Public Safety Dispatchers Union and their Council 4 Union Staff Representative Tom Fascio
The cooperation of the Union working with my administration and our management was vital in getting this task completed efficiently and effectively, in the time frame I demanded (which was like YESTERDAY !)

In addition to Kevin White, our Public Services Department (Local 119) handled the majority of the construction of the new Dispatch Center and just as importantly the relocation of the Police Records Room. A special thanks to the Maintenance Division of that Department, especially our electrician Kenny Cox, who did much of the wiring work for not only electrical but for much of the vast amount of computer equipment that you will see.

In addition to Chief Jackson and AC Licata and Police Chief Larrabee and DC Lennon, I would like to thank the men and women of both Local 1205 Firefighter’s Union and Local 1662 Police Union for their cooperation, training and patience during this very significant transition period of creating a new Public Safety Dispatchers Department.
Finally, thank you to our Finance Director Paul Rizza who coordinated with our department heads, the financial planning of this Center and of course thank you to our Boards of Finance and our Town Council for giving us the necessary funds to make this Center a reality!” Maturo said.