Salt Lake County plans to separate from dispatch center

With the support of the Salt Lake County Council, the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office today took one step toward separating itself from the Valley Emergency Communications Center.

Council members voted in favor of beginning the dissolution, as long as the Unified Fire Authority joins the sheriff's office in forming a separate public safety answering point in the county's emergency operations center.

Council members also voted to allow VECC time to resolve some of the communications problems that have developed between the center and the sheriff's office during the last seven years.

"We are unhappy with the communication between us and VECC," Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder said. "Operationally, I don't think that's the most effective system, but I don't think it's because VECC is intentionally trying to be less effective."

Winder declined to elaborate on the problems the county has encountered with VECC.

Winder also said it would be better for the sheriff's office to receive unincorporated Salt Lake County 911 calls directly, instead of the current system, where county 911 calls first go to VECC, then to a call center in the county, then to a 911 dispatch center with the county.

"The bottom line is, there has been an ongoing discussion about public safety communications, specifically about dispatch centers, over the last decade," Winder said. "There was an emphasis for most agencies to combine under the umbrella of VECC ... but many things have changed over the last decade."

If plans to remove Salt Lake County from VECC go forward, the separation could be complete as early as June 2008.