The Shadow
LOW MOOR – Alleghany County and Clifton Forge are planning to combine their E-911 communications centers, while still looking to establish a regional facility that would include Covington.
The Alleghany County Board of Supervisors was presented with financial considerations involving the merger of the Clifton Forge and county E-911 operations Tuesday night.
Clifton Forge has agreed to fund the cost of adding two full-time dispatchers to the county E-911 communications center at the Alleghany Regional Jail in Covington.
Each dispatcher would cost between $34,528.82 to $41,591.54 per year, depending on benefit packages. Necessary changes to equipment and programming would cost the county an estimated $5,000, according to Ryan Muterspaugh, the county’s director of public safety.
Clifton Forge approached the county about merging the two communications centers in July. The town currently has two vacancies for communications officers, “which makes it an opportune time to move forward” with combining the two dispatch centers.
Equipment in Clifton Forge will remain intact and used as a backup in case the county’s communications center is shut down by an unforeseen emergency.
Clifton Forge Police Chief Barry Balser said the current setup of E-911 landline and wireless communications is causing confusion in dispatching fire and rescue calls. Wireless 911 calls originating from within the town are routed to the county’s communications center in Covington.
Emergency calls from landline phones go to the town’s 911 communications center. Balser said that in some cases, calls are submitted over landline and wireless phones and the two communications centers end up dispatching fire and rescue squads to the same call.
“Sometimes, there’s this big, mass confusion over this, mainly associated with fire and rescue,” Balser said.
Merging the county and town’s E-911 dispatch centers may occur in October or November, Muterspaugh said. Supervisors will consider approving costs associated with equipment and programming conversions at their next meeting, Sept. 21.
“I don’t have a problem with consolidating the 911 centers. We should have consolidated all three,” Sharon District Supervisor Cletus Nicely said.
Nevertheless, Falling Spring Supervisor Rickey May is requesting recent call logs to the county and town’s E-911 communications centers. May said he wants to review the call volume to see if adding two positions to the county communications center is warranted if the merger occurs.
“We keep adding staff and losing population,” May said. “I can’t see why we keep adding staff to all these things.”
In a related development, the county has been notified that it will not be able to use federal grant money to purchase a mobile E-911 communications unit for regional use.
At their Aug. 18 meeting, supervisors voted to use the $500,000 federal Homeland Security grant to purchase the mobile unit, which would have been used to enhance communications for emergency services and law enforcement personnel.
The $500,000 is part of a $600,000 that was awarded to Alleghany County and Covington three years ago to help establish a regional E-911 communications center.
Plans for the regional center are on hold while an evaluation of potential sites for the facilities continues.
Faced with losing the $500,000 if it is not spent by the end of the year, local officials decided to use the money to purchase a mobile E-911 unit.
Muterspaugh said the county and city were originally given approval by the state, which administered the federal grant, to use the $500,000 on the mobile E-911 unit.
The state has since notified the county that using the money for the mobile unit would be outside of the scope of the grant.
The state has told the county and city that it may extend the deadline on using the grant money for its intended purpose – purchasing interoperable equipment for permanent communications facility that would serve the entire region.
County Administrator John Strutner and Supervisor Chairman Steve Bennett said that have been in contact with Del. Jim Shuler, D-Blacksburg, on getting the state to commit to extending the grant.
“We have got to start moving on this thing and ramp it up so we can get this thing done right,” said Bennett in reference to the need for a regional communications center. “I’d hate to see us lose half a million dollars, especially as tight as money is.”
A large segment of Tuesday’s night’s meeting was spent discussing a zoning request by Jean Shepard of Luke Mountain Road.
Shepard is requesting a special-use permit that would allow two potential buyers to convert the historic Luke Mansion into a bed and breakfast inn. Shepard has been seeking to sell the property for at least two years. She has resided in the mansion for more than 30 years.
The proposal calls for the mansion to be used as a bed and breakfast inn with the potential for 11 guest rooms. No new construction is planned. The asking price for the mansion, which is approximately 12,000 square feet in size, is just over $700,000.
During a public hearing on the zoning request, several concerns about the proposal were voiced by Dr. Krishna Sankar, Bonnie Keyser, the Rev. Jamie Pharr and Mike Kasnick.
Pharr and Kasnick reside on Luke’s Mountain, while Keyser plans to move into a house she purchased there two years ago. Dr. Lyn Pickeral, who plans to open a bed and breakfast inn at the Hammond house in Rosedale, spoke in favor of Shepard’s request.
Supervisors will consider acting on Shepard’s request for the special-use permit Sept. 21.
“I have some concerns about this,” Nicely said.
Bennett said speakers during Tuesday’s public hearing raised several questions that must be addressed before supervisors take action.
“There were some things brought up here tonight that I hadn’t thought about,” Bennett said.
In other business Tuesday night, supervisors appointed David Halsey of Clifton Forge to the Planning Commission and briefly discussed a plan to consolidate the county and Covington into a city called Alleghany Highlands.
The consolidation plan was put together by a committee of citizens. It may go before voters in Alleghany County and Covington in a November 2011 referendum. A legal review of the proposal is expected to begin early next year.
Nicely is requesting up-to-date figures on total costs associated with the consolidation effort.
“There has been a tremendous amount of money spent on this. I’d just like to know just how much money has been spent,” Nicely said.
“I don’t like the document,” Nicely said in reference to the consolidation plan. “I don’t like the way it was written, but I’ll bring that up further down the road.”
Bennett said he has several questions about the consolidation plan and the charter for the proposed town.
Supervisors will submit questions in writing to the citizen’s consolidation committee.
“I see a lot between the two documents (consolidation plan and charter), that conflict with one another,” Bennett said.
