Town of Yarmouth laying off entire emergency dispatch service
Jon Tattrie | CBC News | Posted: November 15, 2018 9:41 PM | Last Updated: November 15, 2018
Communities in area scrambling to find new way to connect 911 operators to local firefighters
The Town of Yarmouth is laying off its emergency dispatch service, forcing other communities in southwestern Nova Scotia to find a new way to connect 911 to local fire crews.
Some 24 fire departments in the area used the town's dispatch service, but declined to pay the increased rate the town wanted to charge. Shelburne said the cost went from $100 a month to $30,000 to use it from October 2018 to April 2019.
A total of seven fire departments declined to pay the new rate. That led the Town of Yarmouth to cut the dispatch service altogether.
Service costs $260,000 a year
"We have done everything reasonable to avoid this outcome," Pam Mood, the town's mayor, said in a press release earlier this week.
"We just cannot continue to expect taxpayers of the Town of Yarmouth to subsidize the fire services from Clare around to Shelburne."
Mood said they'd suggested a tax increase of about $10 a year for a family with a home assessed at $100,000 to keep the service going, but that was rejected. Mood said the service costs the town $260,000 a year.
Victoria Brooks, CAO of the Municipality of the District of Yarmouth, said Thursday that summer talks failed to yield a deal.
"We're going to be working with the fire departments to secure an alternate dispatch service," she told CBC News.
She doesn't know when that switch will happen, but said it will be during the current fiscal year.
"Other service providers in the province are hesitant to work with seven or eight fire departments in one municipality. They prefer to have a contract with a fewer number of customers who are purchasing in a group-buying situation," she said.
No change in 911 calls
The district will talk with its fire chiefs before deciding its next move, Brooks said.
People calling 911 during a fire emergency won't notice any difference, she added. Those calls have always gone to the 911 call centre and will continue to do so. The 911 operators then call the local dispatch centre — that's what's changing.
"Change management will happen between the volunteer firefighters and whoever the new dispatch provider is," Brook said.