Reader comments
Audit may end feud over Salt Lake County 911 calls

The 911 service should be under control of each county even if it means a new department agency. A state agency to oversee all county 911 service centers would be useful in coordnation and standarized 911 services in the state. Contracting government services to private business is too often riddled with fraud, waste and poor service. Contractors tend to hire least qualified workers and have poor training for its employees. The contractors job is to make money first and contract services take second seat. The past history of the VECC has shown its poor service and less qualified employees in positions for the emergency services with botched calls and long waits. The contractors set up their own policies of cost reduction and it tends to be in the service they were hired for. An emergency service should not be left to corrupt contratcors that put too much effort in profit and not service. The 911 service doesn't have to be the Sherrifs department however they already have in place the communications system needed for 911 service. The 911 service should be a direct response service of emergency personnel and not a third party service. Government service contracts are wasted taxes.

VECC is not a private contracted service. It is owned by the multiple municipalities that are served by the system. The cities banned together many years ago to achieve state of the art, affordable emergency communications. The center was build with anticipation, contractually forumated, that the Sheriff's Office would abandoned their system and join VECC. This has never happened. I welcome the audit.

This tiff between Winder and VECC has implications beyond money. In the southeast valley, with many county "islands", emergency response has been compromised by the County's unwillingness to live up to their commitment to join VECC. Dual systems delays service and duplicates costs. Perhaps this can all be resolved by annexing unincorporated County into neighboring cities. Such a solution may solve more than just the emergency services issue.