Selectmen Leaning Toward Regionalizing Dispatch Services

Selectmen are warm to Swampscott and Salem sharing fire and police dispatcher services.

Others, including the town fire chief, do not share the board’s enthusiasm for the change.

On Wednesday, recommended the joint arrangement, which would have civilian dispatchers handling requests for fire and police services in Salem and Swampscott.

Currently, dispatch their own calls.

The have a regional dispatch arrangement with Lynn, and have had it for 16 years.

The Board of Selectmen’s chairwoman, , said the new arrangement is intended to free up more officers for police work.

“The concept has always been to have more uniformed police officers available for police work as opposed to dispatcher (work),” Sullivan said.

Late last year, board members asked the town administrator to investigate alternative regional options for dispatch services. Some board members were not entirely comfortable with a plan the town had been studying, the Middleton regional dispatch center plan.

They are, however, comfortable with the Salem plan.

“The board was unanimously enthusiastic,” Sullivan said.

Meanwhile, Fire Chief Kevin Breen said he recognizes that any change introduces fear and uncertainty but he is “extremely disappointed” that the new agreement would weaken the relationship between the Swampscott and Lynn fire departments, a bond that stretches back some 100 years.

As part of the existing agreement WIth Swampscott, Lynn not only dispatches but Lynn firefighters respond automatically to Swampscott telephone alarms, fire calls that signal the need for a more serious fire response, Breen said.

The town had about 50 of these last year, he said.

Salem will now take on that role.

The chairwoman said the dispatching change is not going to save the town money, though the Swampscott/Salem arrangement would be much cheaper than the Middleton plan, which was estimated to cost about $250,000 a year, she said.

The agreement between Salem and Swampcott should be hammered out in the next 6-8 weeks, then it would come to selectmen for their approval.

A second phase of dispatch regionalization calls for studying the feasibility of a tri-town agreement among Swampscott, Salem and Marblehead. 

More and more towns are looking closer at regionalization of town services.

The fire chief thinks the ground was fertile for a regional agreement with Lynn.

“It’s sad, because if we were left to our own devices we might have led the way to a new era of regionalization,” Breen said.

Swampscott officials, however, appear to be looking in a different direction for regional arrangements.

In October Swampcott voted to share some building inspection services with Salem.