Riverside Fire Authority Chief Mike Kytta, left, addresses members of the RFA Board of Governance on Wednesday evening.
As discussions continue about the long-term future of the Lewis County 911 dispatch service, potential actions to be taken by county officials and municipal user groups highlight the direction talks could be headed on a number of levels.
“I think we’re at one of those junctures now with numerous studies underway and an obvious need for changed and improved facilities,” said Mike Kytta, Riverside Fire Authority chief. “… I’m not a believer that bigger is better — better is better — and we need to know what ‘better’ is before we can make a choice.”
The prospect of Lewis County joining forces with Thurston County 911 Communications, also known as TCOMM, for a regionalized agency that could include other neighboring counties, has been raised and a feasibility study will likely take place later this year.
At the local level, officials from Centralia and Chehalis continue to explore the possibility that the four agencies serving the Twin Cities — the Centralia Police Department, Riverside Fire Authority, Chehalis Police and Chehalis Fire Departments — could defect from Lewis County and join TCOMM. Discussions about how to best staff and operate the Lewis County 911 dispatch center are continuing as they have for the past couple of years.
The Combined User Committee (CUC) made up of representatives from Lewis County emergency service providers recommended Friday that their respective agencies consider extending the current interlocal agreement between said agencies and the county through the end of 2021. It is currently set to expire at the end of this year.
No formal decisions have been made, but the county commissioners are likely to take action in the near future that formally requests TCOMM participate in a study of key factors of the regionalization process, such as cost, infrastructure, governance and the impact it would have on public safety.
“We’ve certainly had conversations with the cities, RFA and some other people involved,” Lewis County Manager Erik Martin said. “I don’t think it’s a situation where we can look at more than one situation at the same time.”
Martin has been the lead official working on the issue from the county side. He spoke at the CUC meeting alongside Kytta about the concept of regionalization. Both said those in attendance were interested in finding out more about what such a shift would entail.
There has been a push in recent years at the federal and state levels to promote regionalization of some essential services, such as 911 dispatch. Kytta said that Jefferson County and Clallam County have been exploring a similar partnership as what could take place between Lewis County and TCOMM.
Extending the interlocal agreements another two years would give all parties involved more time to flesh out their options. It would otherwise be a tight window to get a feasibility study completed with enough time to make an informed decision, Kytta said.
“We’re still moving and there’s progress being made on the Lewis County side, with information being gathered to help people make informed decisions,” Kytta said. “I know back in the late 1970’s, we had a series of dispatching facilities, and there’s been a long history of slowly consolidating locally to get to where we are now. You do tend to look at the activities occurring in this state and the western portion of the United States, and see if those trends have any benefit for our area as well.”
Martin praised the leadership of Steve Mansfield, emergency management director for Lewis County, as he’s worked to shore up concerns about the reliability of the Lewis County 911 dispatch operation.
Martin cited a decrease to 49 inquiries filed in 2018 by user agencies from 76 during the previous year as evidence that reforms spearheaded by Mansfield are beginning to bear fruit. Dispatchers have also spent nearly twice as much time on training exercises as before and worked 36 percent less overtime in 2018 than in 2017.
Mansfield has in the past emphasized the growing trend of regionalization as reason why the Twin Cities agencies shouldn’t be looking to break off from Lewis County. Those four agencies also pay more than half of the user fees collected annually by the county.
“It makes very good sense in some cases and, in others, it doesn’t,” Mansfield said. “So, I think the question is, will it make sense here in Lewis County from the standpoint of public safety, economics and efficiency and the effectiveness of our services. They are questions you need good, solid answers to before making any determination. Nobody’s ready to say if that’s right for Lewis County until we get those questions answered.”
