I was just Thinking: Marginally Superior to Carrier Pigeons and Semaphore — A Historical Perspective on the County’s Dispatch Center

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Judging from comments I receive about these columns when somebody recognizes that I’m the person who — for good or for bad — is responsible for them, I’m reminded that we haven’t lost all of our small town character … at least our remembrances about how things used to be.

Going along with that is the implication that life would be better if we could go back in time —  we can’t.

Brace yourself, folks, here’s another return to the past, based on last Saturday’s front page story about the updated cost of a proposed Centralia and Chehalis dispatch center. The article says it’ll take $4 million to build and $2.4 million a year to operate. Let me take you back in time to “the good old days” when Frances, Lisa, Matthew and I moved into Centralia after living an idyllic six years on Curtis Hill Road.

That was when there was no dispatch center, when contact with the public was done by one man, the desk sergeant, be it in Centralia, Chehalis or the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.  A shortwave radio was used to alert the officers in their cars.  There were no handheld devices outside of WWII walkie talkies; Dick Tracy’s wrist radio was only an impossible dream. 

The dispatcher — always a “he” — could then hope that the officers he was calling weren’t in one of the many blind spots where two-way radio was non-existent.  It was marginally superior only to carrier pigeons and semaphore flags, but it was the best any of the departments had.

A slight digression: in those days, the police station (at least in Centralia) was open to the public 24 hours a day, every day of the week. It provided a safe haven when needed, for citizens without their having to go through a series of channels to get help. 

It was always there — open to the citizens without a bullet-proof separation between them.  Personal contact was important.



Certainly it was when each of our children got into a brush with the law! Their only brush with the law, I should add. I think enough time has passed that I can now relate that Matthew was nabbed for being outside after curfew.  That used to be a crime, you might remember.  Lisa had the misfortune to be riding with friends in a car where there was a bottle of beer in the back seat.  Calm conversation between parents and law enforcement — instead of today’s more commonly used tirades and yelling between parties — was all that was needed.

Digression over.  When, in January 1980, I moved into the Mayor’s office — with, also, the title of Police Commissioner and Fire Commissioner — a message center of sorts was in operation in Centralia, still hampered by blind spots in the city. When one of the operators had to miss a shift, the only solution was to take an officer off his beat to fill in. Moving the transmitter to Cook’s Hill was an improvement on the technical side but still fell short of perfection.

That was when the cities of Centralia and Chehalis, along with the county government, began talks about combining the three inadequate systems into one working dispatch center. Memory fails me as to the exact date of the beginnings of unified operation, but it wasn’t long before dissatisfaction over minor problems became impossible to ignore and many continue to the present day; hence, the discussion between Centralia and Chehalis about the possibility of breaking away from the current system.

Going back in time doesn’t seem to be a possibility but, who could have imagined, then, how technology would leap past Dick Tracy’s make-believe wrist radio?

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Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven321@comcast.net.