The Shelton Police Department’s 13 dispatchers handle about 150,000 calls per year and dispatch 29,000 calls for service.
Since July 3 they’ve been doing so in far more comfortable surroundings.
The department recently gutted the old communications room and refitted it with new equipment.
Before this month, the room hadn’t changed much since the station opened in 1975, though there had been some technology upgrades about a decade ago.
The recent upgrade — it came with a price tag of $179,000, which came from grants and the department’s budget — makes the job of the police dispatchers easier, Chief Joel Hurliman said, but the benefits extend to all of Shelton’s emergency services.
“It’s not just the Police Department’s (communications), it’s the brains of the the police radio system, the Fire Department radio system, Public Works’ radio system, and EMS,” the chief said, adding that the new equipment will allow police to better patch into frequencies used by firefighters and EMS personnel.
All in all the work took about a month to get done, during which time the department relocated dispatch operations to a room in the basement of the police station.
The new setup for dispatchers will be especially beneficial on those thankfully rare occasions when a big incident floods the switchboard with calls from anyone to witnesses to onlookers to — ahem — inquisitive reporters.
“When you have a bad car accident or fire, everybody’s calling,” Lt. Robert Kozlowsky said. “And then you add in everybody calling in on the radio for stuff.”
The new equipment streamlines the process of “toning out” firefighters, which will allow dispatchers to return to dealing with phone calls sooner.
“With scenes like that, the multi-tasking makes it easier,” Kozlowsky said. “It’s easier to dispatch, especially the fire department.”
The sergeants that work with the supervisors will also have an easier time during such hectic incidents because a third work station was also added to the room. Before that, police supervisors would have to literally stand over dispatchers’ shoulders.
“Now a supervisor or another officer can sit down, answer the phones, be on the computer, and can be more into what’s going on,” Kozlowsky said. “Instead of standing over their shoulders, he can directly help.”
Workers stripped the old dispatch room and rebuilt it from scratch using all new equipment.
“They took it down to the bare concrete walls,” Hurliman said. “When the equipment gets old, which it was, we had put in an upgrade to it a couple years ago, but parts become difficult to obtain, and it was time to replace it.”
Completely new furniture also made it easier to incorporate all the technology upgrades. Where before computers and monitors were jumbled together in whatever free space there was, with wires sticking out in all directions, the new setup is clean and clutter-free.
And in addition to the communications revamp, the city’s Aldermen in April approved the purchase of a $21,517 “uninterrupted power supply” surge protector that replaced several smaller units. Before, police had four smaller units running only vital equipment. Hurliman said the new equipment “will power the whole building for in excess of a half-an-hour, probably closer to an hour.”
That’s important, the chief said, because if the police station loses power they can’t send the Fire Department to emergencies.
“Not only is all the emergency information located on computers, if we lose the power to dispatch we also lose the ability to tone out the fire companies,” Hurliman said.
And more improvements are on tap: the department plans to renovate a break room for the dispatchers and a nearby sergeant’s office. They’re also hoping to replace their phone system soon.
But in the meantime, Hurliman is glad the communications room got a needed facelift.
“It’s probably the nicest room in the Police Department now,” he said.
