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I'm going to go with 'NO' you didnt.
I'm a 911 Professional, I've worked in a larger city, a smaller town, and now I work in a combined dispatch center. It is my personal experience that when towns consilidate, there is great potential for response times to decrease in the following areas; the time it takes the call taker to answer and enter a call for service into the computer ( my center is less than one minute to have a call entered and dispatched), the time it takes the dispatcher to send requested units, and the time it takes emergency personnel to arrive on scene. Sure, there are going to be some "speed bumps" or "growing pains" in the beginning while the everyone adjusts to the new center, gets acclimated with policies and procedures, for everyone to be trained on new equipment. A vital link for this new center is that whoever is going to be in charge of and run it NEEDS TO HAVE A VAST KNOWLEDGE OF 911 OPERATIONS AS AN ADMINISTRATOR. Someone who has been in the field for decades. Dispatchers will need lots of training and continuing education.
Do you think the Dispatchers in Lake County WANT this? Not all of them are going to be getting jobs. They most likely will have to apply for a job at the center, sure some will retire, some wont want to work there, but most of them NEED to work. My heart goes out to the dispatchers that may lose their jobs.
I could go on for hours. Botton line, know your facts. Dont just say something that you dont know to be fact just because you may not want Lake County to consolidate.
The information the PSAP receives on a cellular 911 call is the call back number, the city/address/phone number to the tower the call is bouncing off of, the geographical coordinates of the caller, and these are approximate to several meters of the actual location of the phone, the name of the cell phone provider (in case the dispatcher needs to attempt to trace the cellular 911 call.), and finally the phase of the call, usually phase 1 or phase 2 wireless. The phases of a cell phone call are referring to the capability of it to be tracked, the higher the phase, the more accurate information the PSAP will receive on the location of the phone.
A HUGE issue that PSAPs are dealing with now is the amount of 911 hang up calls that are being received. IF a 911 call is received and there is an apparent problem heard on the line, and the caller has not or refused to give their location, that is when the 911 operator turns to the cell phone provider to attempt to obtain the subscriber information, this is where major delays come into play. Some cell phone providers will supply subscriber information happily to ensure the safety of their customers. Proper paper work is filed by the requesting agency to the cell phone provider documenting the date/time of the 911 call as well as the reason for the "trace" of the call. During this process cell phone providers can "ping" the phone for current location, greatly assisting the 911 dispatcher. NOT all cell phone providers are so helpful, and need certain requirements met before they release any information which can take anywhere from several minutes to over thirty minutes to hours. And then we have the pre-paid cell phone users who chose to provide no contact information or fake information.
THEN we have the cell phones that no longer have a service plan, but are being kept charged and functional. These phones are still capable of dialing 911, sometimes listed as "SOS" on the screen. When these phones dial 911, the PSAP receives the address/location of the tower the call is bouncing off of, and a phone number with 911 as the area code, and the name of the former cell phone provider. These types of phones are often given to children to play with, or a relative to have just in case they need to dial 911. PLEASE for the love of all that is holy, people please do not give these phones to kids to play with! They will dial 911. The amount of 911 hang up calls that PSAPs are recieving from these shut-off phones, is mind blowing.
Bottom line, when dialing 911 from a cell phone, be ready to advise the dispatcher what town/city you are in, and an exact address or intersection is most helpful. MOST of all be prepared to be asked questions! The amount of people that think 911 dispatchers should "just send the police" is ridiculous. 911 DISPATCHERS ASK QUESTIONS! We need to know the nature of the call, if there are any weapons involved, any intoxication, location of offenders/ subjects, descriptions of said offenders/ subjects, and for the love of all that is HOLY do not hang up the phone on the dispatcher because he or she is asking "too many questions" The questions we are trained to ask are for the callers safety, safety of other citizens, safety of the emergency responders, whether police/ fire/ or EMS personnel.
And in regards to this E911 consolidation in Lake County, a $30 million dollar center is not necessary. People in charge of this, please wake up and smell the Lever Brothers plant already! Use an existing building, save money over time to build a new center, and not put another tax on the citizens who are already struggling to pay their taxes and bills thanks the state of the economy and job market. Yes consolidation is something that has been done well in Illinois, take some field trips, speak to some directors of those 911 centers, find out how they handled the switch financially, take some pointers, there is no need to reinvent the wheel here.