Council Will Vote Tonight on One-Year Lease in Cleveland Clinic for Dispatch Center

Twinsburg City Council will consider a resolution at tonight’s meeting that would allow the mayor to enter into a lease agreement with the Twinsburg Cleveland Clinic for an emergency dispatch center.

According to the agreement, the first year of the lease would be no charge to the city for the approximately 2,100-square-foot center in the lower level of the Twinsburg Cleveland Clinic Family Health and Surgery Center.

Mayor Katherine Procop said the city is in preliminary talks with other communities to make it a regional center. The communities of Macedonia, Hudson, and Boston Heights have been players in this deal, but because it’s a long-term decision, things won’t really move forward until after the November elections.

“If we don’t find the right partnerships with surrounding communities, then this may not happen,” Procop said. “Hopefully we will be able to establish a regional dispatch center.”

If no other communities sign on with the proposal, Twinsburg will have some options. Procop said the current dispatch center in the police department needs more space and upgrades so they may compare the cost of making the upgrades versus moving into the Cleveland Clinic.

The current dispatch center in the police station is used by both police and fire departments, including calls for Reminderville.

“We have too many different scenarios laid out right now,” Procop said. “We’d have to establish a board, and those costs would be established by that board. So we’re in the very preliminary stages still.”

Procop said the earliest she could see the city moving into the dispatch center would be late 2012.

“And that’s a big ‘if’, if we have to do it on our own,” she said.