Marengo E-911 troubles

[stickman]

You would think that since the Marengo E-911 Board has selected a new director, that things would be improving up there. According to the information published in local newspapers, the new director, Mr. Floyd Wilson was aptly qualified and fully capable of overseeing the operation of our E-911 center.

Now we read in the Goodloe rag of goof-ups in directions given to responding firefighters and once again questioning the competence of our E-911 staff. Had Goodloe taken time to fully investigate this particular story and ACCURATELY report it, he could have had some good scoop.

It seems that in the incident of the firetrucks being dispatched south of Thomaston instead of north to the fire, that our E-911 center had only ONE qualified person manning the console. This one operator was having to dispatch for the ENTIRE county, not just the "Demopolis Console" or the "County Console", but BOTH all by herself. Now, for anyone who has any working knowledge of our dispatch system in this county, one person alone is not capeable of handling all the traffic from both consoles for any length of time. A few minutes for one operator to go to the bathroom, eat supper, or take a break - yes. Not for a whole shift or even part of a shift. This is what happened on this day. Our new E-911 Director took it upon himself to man the second console, but according to sources has no working knowledge of a dispatch system, much less how to work the Marengo County system! The qualified operator had the whole system by herself without another qualified person in the building to assist her. She did not have time to look up addresses for the firemen because she had responding firemen screaming at her over the radio, deputies trying to correct her on the directions she was giving, Demopolis Police officers pissed off because she could not answer them immediately, phone calls about the fire coming in, and God knows what all else hitting her all at one time while our new E-911 Director sits there......lost. Does not know how to answer the telephone in the dispatch center, does not know how to operate the radio equipment, and couldn't tell you who he was talking to if he could operate the radio! To add insult to injury, the E-911 operator was given a written reprimand for the incident.

Just this past Thursday, Mr. Floyd Wilson hires a local female for part-time work at E-911. He hired this woman and allowed her to work 4 hours in our dispatch center after running a criminal history on her KNOWING she had outstanding warrants on her for bad checks in Tuscaloosa County!!! Sources report that the woman's criminal history (aka RAP sheet) was conveniently "disposed of".

Did our E-911 Board perform a thorough investigation into Mr. Wilson's background, qualifications, and employment references before they hired him? Was Mr. Wison employed with any form of probationary status? Sounds to me like it's time the E-911 Board takes a REAL CLOSE LOOK at how our emergency communications center is being run before something serious happens and it gets its' *** sued off!

Or....does anyone really care what happens with our E-911 center?????


C U L8TR!

Stickman

[dave]

Interesting..When kevin McKinnley announced the new director, he boasted on his knowlege of switchboards and was supposed to be able to teach others on how to use them. So much for that...

The only point Goodloe wants to get across is his opinion that if you live in Demopolis your an idiot. In his view, the only reason E911 is having problems is because it's in Demopolis.