Should Provo 911 send a call for help?

"In 1997 we had 92 police officers," he said. "Now we have 97 positions authorized, an increase of 5 percent. In 1997 we had 19 dispatchers and now we have 22 authorized. That's 15 percent. That's a larger increase than we've had in the patrol division."

Geslison points out that before a citywide budget cutback in 2003, the center had 23 positions.

Ferre differentiates between positions added through city funds and those that come from 911 surcharge funds, a monthly fee included on phone bills, but Raylene Ireland, Provo's spokeswoman, says that isn't fair because the 911 money comes to the city for the purpose of helping with staffing.

Bolda challenged Ferre when a Deseret Morning News story quoted her in March as saying the city hadn't added a dispatcher position since the early 1990s.

"I showed her on paper that was not true and felt the city was being misrepresented," Bolda said, "and she would not acknowledge that."

"We can show you there has been an increase," Geslison said. "End of story."

The memos

Ferre crafted long, detailed memos full of charts and graphs over a seven-year period leading up to Aston's 911 call in October 2004. In fact, Ferre wrote a memo three days before Aston died.

Provo contends most of the memos were related to requests for staffing and that the most provocative ones were written during the 2003 citywide budget crisis in an effort most managers would make when faced with a cut in staffing. Bolda said he coached Ferre on some of the memos, and some information she used in them is pulled directly from APCO's Web site.

In a April 2003 memo, Ferre responded strongly when told she would lose one dispatch position.

"Two of the most difficult ones are right at the budget time," Ireland said. "The April memos are the budgetary process. There is a frame of mind represented there, an intensity about her feelings about having to realize a cutback because of the cutbacks everyone in the city was realizing. I think she tries to make her point in the most compelling way she can. Everyone lost personnel. Patrol, detectives, fire, paramedics, dispatch. No one was spared. In a city, everyone has to work within the context of the budgetary issues that they have."

But Ferre says today that she came to believe Geslison and Bolda viewed her memos as typical of a good manager fighting for more staff — but insists she saw a real crisis, and her strong language continued beyond 2003.