Sheriff's Communications Center at the Rockland Fire Training Center in Pomona unveiled

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http://westchester.news12.com/news/sheriff-s-communications-center-at-the-rockland-fire-training-center-in-pomona-unveiled-1.6649616

POMONA, NY - Local lawmakers and people in the community gathered today to unveil a new dispatch center in Rockland County that will help local police officers get to emergencies much quicker.

The Sheriff's Communications Center at the Rockland Fire Training Center in Pomona is a $7.9 million, 9,000-square foot facility. All 911 calls are answered there and it serves as the emergency dispatch for the 26 volunteer fire departments.

The new communications center has 15 emergency dispatch stations and the center can function as a backup to town or village police departments, if they have to evacuate their own headquarters.

Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco says the most important thing is now every service can instantly talk to each other.

"We couldn't do that before this new inter-operable radio system. We'd have to do it by phone. We'd have to run over to a fire truck. We'd have to run over to the EMS. Now we'll be able to interact with everybody," Falco says.

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Who will be dispatching EMS? Still the local PD's? Or are they coming into this new center as well?

When I worked over there, we were dispatched by 201, 301, 401, etc. It was not an impressive system. You were lucky if they answered the radio when you called. It was clear their priority was the PD. Not knocking them for taking care of their own, but EMS got left out.

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Looks nice. The key to success is to eliminate duplicated resources with untrained personnel handling calls.

#WestchesterProblems