All five Santa Barbara County supervisors voted on Tuesday to separate fire and medical dispatch operations from the Sheriff’s Office, capping a two-year effort by fire chiefs to run their own emergency communications center and highlighting the longstanding rift between the public safety entities. The vote also started the process of expanding the county’s existing Emergency Operations Center on Cathedral Oaks Road to accommodate the new fire/medical dispatch facility. Construction is estimated to cost $10.4 million with an annual budget of $2.5 million.
Insider guns ’n’ hoses drama aside, the chiefs and county Emergency Medical Director Dr. Angelo Salvucci insist, somewhat counter-intuitively, that a separation will actually….
