Brenneman's account of 911 questioned

 With great respect for Mr. Brenneman’s efforts to make central dispatch a reality in Flathead County and deference to his opinion concerning the current commissioners’ leadship on the 911 Board; I must say that Joe too may suffer from “selective recall” in his recollection of events during the early discussions of creating central dispatch. (See Brenneman’s letter in Nov. 22 Inter Lake.)

As the then City Manager of Columbia Falls, I believe that in the beginning, all of the four entities that then had a dispatch center desired a central dispatch that was funded outside of the then current mill levy. Jim Dupont (then sheriff) was no exception. All of us struggled with funding adequate communication devices to our respective emergency service providers, especially in the wake of 9/11 and rapid advancement in communication technology. Freeing the mills provided for separate dispatch centers would have allowed for equipping our service people sooner and better.

As I recall, the cities did not wait for consolidation to “chant double taxation” nor did they ever buy the arguement that because they were able to provide emergency response in greater force and more timely manner than the county, that their citizens should be taxed by both the county and city for consolidated dispatch. Dispatch does not provide the reponse resources; it dispatches the resource provided by others. As such, it should be funded in a manner equitable to every household and business in the county; not twice for those residing within the city jurisdition.

The then county commissioners (at the pre-consolidation discussions) were deaf to these arguments and a call for levy funding of consolidated dispatch and (in my opinion at the time) spineless, because they refused to even allow the question to be advanced to a public debate and vote. True, the cities yielded to the current system of funding, not because it was equitable to their citizens, but because without it the consolidation wasn’t going to happen. —William Shaw, Columbia Falls