Reminder Publications | Ludlow chiefs speak against potential regional dispatch

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LUDLOW — WestComm Regional Dispatch Executive Director Erin Hastings met with the Board of Selectmen at its June 6 meeting to see if the town would be interested in regionalizing, making WestComm its main dispatch center.

WestComm is located in Chicopee and offers 24/7 emergency dispatch services for Chicopee, Longmeadow, Monson, East Longmeadow and Ware.

Hastings added WestComm just signed a deal with Hampden’s County Sherriff’s Office to start dispatching for them as well.

Hastings’ presentation provided more information about WestComm, what it has to offer, potential benefits of joining WestComm and state 911 grants.

The presentation showed that WestComm is currently remodeling a recently acquired building on Shawinigan Drive in Chicopee that will allow the dispatch to increase the workforce from nine positions to 29.

The construction is projected to be done by December 2024.

WestComm uses regionalization, which includes towns sharing a resource and having one dispatcher cover several towns.

The presentation showed the population of Maryland and Massachusetts were very close but the total number of public safety answering points in Massachusetts was 212 compared to 24 in Maryland.

“The state is trying to get that down to a much smaller number,” Hastings added.

There are currently two public safety answering points in Ludlow and currently has the police, fire and EMS calls all centralized into one dispatch center.

Strange added that joining WestComm would save the town money and help with the current budget issues the town is facing.

He said, “Our dispatch costs every year are probably somewhere around $725,000. Over the first six years we would save $4 million. That is $4 million that can be used for public parks, fields, streets sidewalks. That is a lot of money that the town would be foregoing, and then after that we would be looking at $500,000 in additional operating money.”

Both Police Chief Dan Valadas and Fire Chief Ryan Pease were at the meeting to talk about their current dispatch system that they both expressed took many years to build it up to the place it is today.

Pease said that a regionalization study was done with Longmeadow, East Longmeadow and Ludlow a few years ago and it was decided that regionalization was not the best approach for Ludlow and decided to form a centralized dispatch service.

In 2018, voters approved an article on a Town Meeting warrant to allow the town of Ludlow to appropriate and/or borrow an amount of money not to exceed $4.8 million to be expended under the direction of the Town of Ludlow Radio Communications Advisory Committee for a town-wide simulcast radio communications system upgrade which will include infrastructure replacement, portables, mobiles and other associated communications equipment.

In 2021, the Ludlow Planning Board approved a site plan for a new communications tower that would improve communications between town departments for a town-wide communication system involving police, fire, DPW, schools, the Senior Center and the Board of Health.

Pease said, “Ludlow decided that we are going to be a self-sustaining, self-sufficient organization that provides the individual services in the town, for the townspeople of Ludlow and its first responders through one entity. It has been three years of blood, sweat and tears put into this project to finally make this system the best I could be for Ludlow.”

He added, “My biggest problem is we spent all this money on this project. Had we chose to go in the other direction it probably could have gone another way for the town but we invested in this town. Let’s let the town provide the service we invested in and maybe not be so quick to regionalize.”

Valadas said, “It’s the town’s nerve center. In Ludlow, if you have a call to make, 24/7, 365, it goes to those two people sitting at that communications center. That is the best service you can have. It may not be the most cost effective service but it is the highest quality you can get because you have that local feel.”

Valadas talked highly of the current dispatch services Ludlow provides and there are currently nine full-time dispatchers and four per diem dispatchers employed in Ludlow.

Valadas added, “A lot of the communities that did regionalize, many of them were burdened with tremendous turnover and attrition costs from not having enough people to work. We don’t have that.”

Other Ludlow police officers and dispatchers said they were not in favor of joining WestComm and think the current dispatch office in Ludlow can offer the same things WestComm can with a quicker response time.

Pease said, “We feel passionate about what we have. We feel we have the best service and best system. It is [Valadas’ and my] recommendation that we keep what we have because we know we have the best. I am not convinced we are mobbing to a better place.”

Board of Selectmen Chair James Gennette said the board has not yet made a decision regarding WestComm and predicts that there will be more conversations before a decision is made.