PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. – The Calvert County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) today officially activated the county’s new public safety communications system. The new 800-megahertz P25 digital communications system replaces the county’s 25-year-old system to provide enhanced radio coverage and interoperability for the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office, fire departments, rescue squads and county government agencies.

“The vital importance of radio communications for emergency personnel cannot be overstated,” said BOCC President Earl F. “Buddy” Hance. “This new system will provide a new level of safety and service that our citizens and first responders deserve.”

“The old system has served us well, but we are excited for the increased coverage and capabilities that the new system provides,” said Public Safety Director Jackie Vaughan. “In addition, Calvert County will maintain full control of the entire system, including the new towers and radios, and the technology is protected against obsolescence so we can expect this new system to serve the needs of our citizens and first responders for the next 20 years.”

A $21.4 million contract was awarded to Motorola Solutions, Inc. in early 2016 and was the largest single contract Calvert County has ever awarded.

Tower construction and equipment installation began in 2017 and system testing began in 2019. Five existing towers were replaced, four new towers were constructed and communications equipment was installed on other existing structures throughout the county.

With a total of 15 sites, the new system provides more reliable in-building coverage, increases the number of available communications channels from five to 10, and provides 1,200 new mobile and portable radios to first responders and public safety personnel.

The system is also designed to enable police and fire departments to better communicate with other local, state and federal agencies when a multi-jurisdictional response is required.

In addition to 20-year maintenance and life cycle protection, the system comes with new features, such as GIS mapping with automatic emergency personnel location and “man down” emergency alerts.

Cops should be on the same page soon in Greenwood County.Plans to approve a uniform, countywide digital records management system will make it easier for officers to share information with one another at a moment’s notice.Currently, officers of the Greenwood Police Department and Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office use the same RMS, which allows them to see each others’ calls and know who is responding to which emergency.“Ninety Six PD, Ware Shoals PD — they all have their own RMS, so we can’t see their reports,” said Jonathan Link, Greenwood Police Department public information officer.RMS software allows for officers to have a computer in their patrol cars that receive information directly from 911 dispatchers, and to share information about the calls they’re on with other officers on patrol. The location, status and call information of each 911 call is available to officers on their screen, and the information they put into the system is visible by other officers using the same system.Recently, Greenwood County Council unanimously voted to allow the county to contract with Caliber Public Safety for a new, countywide RMS. The contract will unify the jail, sheriff’s office, Greenwood police department, Ware Shoals and Ninety Six under the same system, for a total cost of $540,000. The price tag came up less than half of the more than $1.3 million allocated for the project.“Not only is it going to save the county $750,000 from what we budgeted,” Link said, “but one of the big things we’ve fought with is that company A makes the dispatch software, while company B makes the RMS software.”Currently, the software used to transfer date from dispatchers to officers in the field differs from the software officers use in their patrol vehicles, Link said. The issue is that the two systems aren’t perfectly aligned, so some information from one software system doesn’t transmit easily to the other system. To solve for that, the company that makes the RMS system designed a third piece of software — an interface that allows the two systems to communicate with one another.Under the countywide agreement with Caliber, the dispatch and RMS systems will transfer data seamlessly, Link said. The software is also cloud based, meaning the data itself isn’t stored on the officers’ computers or on a server at the law enforcement agency’s offices. Instead, the data is stored on a server managed by Caliber, and officers log into the system online.Link said the Caliber system follows FBI and federal standards for data security.“I’m 100% on board,” said Bryan Louis, Ware Shoals police chief. “It interlocks us in with the other agencies.”When Greenwood County deputies respond to a 911 call near Ware Shoals, Ware Shoals officers would be able to see the details of that call under a unified system. Now, with separate systems, officers have to call in to dispatch to get information from other agencies — a countywide, uniform RMS instead puts that information in the officers’ patrol cars.Ninety Six Police Chief Chris Porter said what he’s seen of the system seems to work smoothly, and he’s excited about the information-sharing capabilities under a uniform system. If Ninety Six officers arrest someone in a burglary case, they can easily check to see if similar burglaries have been reported to other agencies on the same system, to see whether a suspect is connected to cases being investigated by other agencies.“It’ll cut down on a lot of on-air time and radio traffic,” he said. “I think it’ll make the community a lot safer. We’ve been talking about this for years, but didn’t have the up-front cash to do it.”The move to a countywide RMS stems from a project approved under the 2016 Capital Project Sales Tax.“Law enforcement is an intelligence-driven business, and we rely on intel,” Link said. “Having all the major players in Greenwood County on the same system is going to make sharing that information a lot easier.”

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — The Tucson Unified School Safety Department announced Tuesday it received a grant from the U.S Department of Justice to create a program for enhaced security at schools and school facilities.In October 2019, the safety department was awarded a grant of $525,000 under the 2019 COPS Office School Violence Prevention Program, according to a press release from TUSD. The COPS program was made to enhance security within school campuses and school facilities.With the grant, TUSD enrolled into a county-wide association for public safety and public service agencies called the Pima County Wireless Integrated Network, according to TUSD. In October 2020, the program created, added to services in the TUSD community, by regulating public safety communications in the county and broaden safety in the community.The funds allowed the safety department to buy public safety grade radios, which allows TUSD to communicate with police, fire and public services in any emergency.In February 2021, the safety department’s dispatchers were given a dispatch room at Menlo Park School.
The TUSD Department of School Safety’s mission is to create and maintain a safe and secure educational climate for all students and staff members, through the protection of life and property, the resolution of conflict and the proactive reduction of opportunities for the commission of crime on all district property. Tucson Unified School District is proud to work together with law enforcement agencies on potential or real emergencies to ensure the safety of every child in our community.

Fire chief Scott Atkins said Dadeville Volunteer Fire Department will have to scrape by on a weak radio channel for another few months after learning what the cost of repair would be.”I finally got a quote back late yesterday and I’m afraid it’s not going to be an option,” Atkins told the mayor and city council Tuesday. “The total quote was $20,000.”Atkins said the quote includes $15,000 in parts and $5,000 in labor, which would involve climbing the water tower behind the fire station where the broken antenna is located. Upon hearing the price, Mayor Jimmy Frank Goodman loudly cleared his throat while several other meeting attendees dramatically clutched their chests.  Earlier this month, the new fire chief approached the mayor and city council to address several issues he’d discovered, including the fact the fire department has been relying on weak radio communications ever since its main radio antenna was storm-damaged in April.”We have had communication problems,” Atkins said at the March 9 council meeting. “We cannot talk to one another.”For the past 11 months, the fire department has been using a different radio channel with a shorter tower that does not reach its entire coverage area, Atkins reported. While Tallapoosa County’s E 9-1-1 emergency dispatch system will soon be updated to a new digitized system, that update is several months away.Earlier this month, Atkins said the update wasn’t expected for another five months at least.”I can’t wait till August to have communications; we’ve got to be able to talk,” he said. At the time, Atkins expected it to cost between $500 and $5,000.On Tuesday, however, Atkins said the new system was only two or three months away, making the $20,000 repair not worth it.”If this was going to be a system that we’d use for years and years and years that would be one thing, but we’re just trying to make it until the county swaps over to the new system which will be two or three months,” he said. “So, I don’t see spending the $20,000 for just two or three months.”Atkins said he had one more solution to look into but “I guess right now we’re stuck with what we’ve got,” he said.Atkins, formerly assistant fire chief at Opelika Fire Department, was appointed Dadeville fire chief on March 3. His appointment filled a vacancy left by former fire chief Keith Wilkerson who the council removed by unanimous vote last month.Later in the meeting, Goodman thanked Atkins and the fire and police departments in general in his mayor’s remarks. Goodman also assured Atkins his lack of funds wasn’t a lack of endorsement.”(Atkins) has found a couple of the firetrucks that are in danger of needing work real bad, tires and so forth,” Goodman said. “Chief, you’re doing a good job, just don’t get discouraged. We move slow because we are short of funds. But we are definitely behind you 100%.”The mayor told the fire chief he only refuses to pay for some things “because we write the check and they throw it back at us.”Goodman also addressed some complaints about the police department he said he received over the weekend.”Unfortunately, it was some of my folks that did this,” Goodman said. “But you can’t pick your family. But if we all just worked together, try to come together as one, and treat everybody the way that they need to be treated, let’s let the police do their job; let’s let the fire department do their job.”

A special committee to study the feasibility of moving the city’s current in-house police dispatch to the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office is being formed immediately, according to Mayor Michelle Roman.Roman said the committee will include aldermen, representatives of the city’s police and fire boards, police and fire unions, county legislators and representatives of other nearby municipalities.The move is in direct response to a recommendation made late last week by State Attorney General Letitia James, who released a detailed report on policing and dispatch actions taken by Lockport Police Department and Niagara County Sheriff’s personnel on the night of Troy Hodge’s death in the city in June of 2019.
While James concluded there was insufficient evidence to establish any crime was committed by responding Lockport officers nor Niagara County Sheriff’s deputies, she also “encouraged” the LPD to discontinue its in-house 911 dispatch operations and use the Niagara County Central Dispatch Center.Alderman Rick Abbott said Tuesday that he was planning to bring the dispatch move up for discussion at the very next council work session. It was originally talked about at length a few years ago, he said, during the last contract negotiations between the city and its police union. At that time, Abbott said the sheriff’s department and county officials negotiated a new dispatch agreement with then mayor Dave Wohleben.“They said they would provide the service for free and committed to giving the city its own dedicated phone line,” Abbott said.“The Attorney General’s report says we should have services go to the county. They have a state-of-the-art communications room. The equipment we have (at the LPD) is 30 years old. It made sense then and it makes sense now.”City Clerk Paul Oates said the current city/police union contract was ratified in 2016 and expires Dec. 31, 2023.Abbott said he thought the dispatch move was a done deal, but it subsequently nixed by the city’s police union, which included in its new contract the stipulation that any such move would need to be negotiated first with the Lockport Police Benevolent Association.“We can’t afford as a city to upgrade our system,” Abbott said, estimating the costs anywhere between a quarter million to a half million dollars. “We would still need to absorb the start-up cost for radios and computers, but this way we get more cops out on the streets.”

ANN ARBOR, MI — Ann Arbor officials have laid out a proposal for an unarmed public safety response program to have non-police professionals respond to certain 911 calls.Mayor Christopher Taylor and other City Council members are co-sponsoring a resolution on the council’s April 5 agenda to direct City Administrator Tom Crawford to establish a program by the end of the year in collaboration with the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office and others.If the resolution is approved, Crawford would be tasked with exploring opportunities for unarmed responses to calls through Metro 911, possibly forming partnerships with community service providers and identifying which responses now handled by armed police could be carried out by experts in areas such as mental health, public health and human services.That could include handling non-emergency medical calls, complaints about homeless encampments, medical transport requests, some mental health crisis calls and similar calls with no suspected criminal activity or clear and present threat to the physical safety of others, the resolution states.“Police officers everywhere are tasked to perform many functions better suited for non-police persons with expertise in public health, mental health and human services,” Taylor said. “We recognize that challenge and are looking for ways to effect a continuum of response so that we can better serve people during calls for service that do not require police officer involvement.”The resolution directs the city administrator to include funds for such a program in the 2021-22 budget.If such a program is not possible by the end of 2021, Taylor and council members want the administrator to report back on any obstacles and recommendations for overcoming them.They also want the city’s police oversight commission to be consulted in the process.The first four council members to sign on as co-sponsors with Taylor are Erica Briggs, Jen Eyer, Travis Radina and Linh Song.Radina, D-3rd Ward, said he spoke with residents on the campaign trail last year about the need to fundamentally change the city’s approach to policing and public safety.“This resolution is a critically important step in that direction and will hopefully help to rebuild community trust,” he said. “For far too many of our neighbors – especially some BIPOC, LGBTQ and neuro-diverse residents – the presence of armed police does not make them feel safer in our community.”Ann Arbor survey shows disparity in how white and Black residents feel treated by policeBy reimagining Ann Arbor’s public safety model to include a response from public health, mental health and human services professionals when appropriate, the city can divert more residents from the criminal justice system and get them the support and resources they need, Radina said.Song, D-2nd Ward, said the resolution is about matching services to needs.“In conversations with Asian and Asian American community members and leaders, it’s clear how there’s a hesitancy to engage the police, even in the wake of hate crimes and harassment,” she said. “I hope we can demonstrate a more expansive understanding of policing as it impacts communities of color. This would be a good start.”The resolution was developed in collaboration with the city administrator and Police Chief Michael Cox, and Washtenaw County Community Mental Health and the Sheriff’s Office have reviewed it and expressed support, Taylor said, adding he also has spoken with county officials and has reason to hope there will be a mirroring county resolution.Taylor said he’s optimistic that, with collaborative relationships among Ann Arbor police, Community Mental Health and the Sheriff’s Office, they’ll be able to launch a program that gets people the help they need and improves public safety.The city does not provide direct public health, mental health or human services programs and those services instead are provided by Community Mental Health, the Washtenaw County Health Department, the county’s Office of Community and Economic Development and nonprofit agencies.The successful deployment of non-police responders will require close coordination with Metro 911 dispatch, law enforcement and other agencies, the resolution states, noting dispatch services are provided by the Sheriff’s Office.The Ann Arbor Police Department and Community Mental Health already partner via a crisis support team to coordinate responses to calls for service involving people in mental health crisis, and the city supports community members who need access to services, avoiding incarceration when possible, the resolution states.Officials now want to expand on that to have more responses to 911 calls by non-police professionals with extensive training and expertise in different areas.“During even non-confrontational police-public interactions involving public health, mental health and human service needs, the presence of a holstered firearm may give rise to feelings of unease and intimidation, particularly among persons from BIPOC communities,” the resolution states, adding civilian fatalities and injuries have resulted from police engaging people with mental illness when police response was not necessary.MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS:Ann Arbor residents can call 911 to report abandoned rental scooters, officials sayRecords shed more light on outcomes of citizen complaints against Ann Arbor policeAnn Arbor PFAS levels rise again. City says it’s coming from Wixom.Judge signals intent to order cleanup plan in Ann Arbor dioxane pollution caseEPA open to Superfund cleanup in Ann Arbor if state is on board

The Larimer County commissioners voted Tuesday to contribute $250,000 toward completion of a backup dispatch center that will benefit emergency agencies across the county.The Larimer Emergency Telephone Authority is creating the backup at its new offices at the 2534 development in Johnstown — a building that it shares with the Larimer County Emergency Operations Center that is expected to open this summer.
The telephone authority, a governing body that administers 911 programs for all emergency agencies within the county, is on the second floor of a two-story building. Officials’ plan is to create a backup dispatch center at that site that can be used by any emergency agency as needed.
A dispatch center answers 911 calls and ensures that police, fire and medical crews respond to help.
“It helps to take that load off any one dispatch center,” said Lori Hodges, the county’s director of emergency management.
Right now, there are five dispatch centers that operate within Larimer County — Larimer County Sheriff’s Office, Fort Collins, Loveland and Estes Park police departments and at Colorado State University. If one is overloaded with calls or physically evacuated, the others step in to help and give dispatchers a place to work.
Over the summer, when the town of Estes Park was evacuated due to wildfires, its dispatch center was relocated to Fort Collins’ 911 call center because the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office was already handling a large number of calls related to the two raging fires.
The system works, but not seamlessly, because there is time needed to set up dispatchers from one center into another, to get them in place in a new location, explained Kimberly Culp, chief executive officer of LETA.
“They fold into the operation,” Culp said. “They have to sit down at someone else’s console, someone else’s equipment. … It isn’t in the ready position.”
Plus throw in the pandemic — a time when emergency operations were trying to keep outside or new people from entering the dispatch centers, to keep distance and safety precautions.
This backup center will be available if a dispatch center needs to evacuate, if agencies need extra work stations to have extra dispatchers on duty during an event, or if officials need to move dispatch for one major emergency to a separate location, said Culp.
It will ensure that, no matter what happens, dispatch service will continue without interruption for all communities within the county, Hodges said.
“If we have learned anything from the challenges presented to us in 2020, it is that we must have continuity in our critical systems, and we must be able to adapt to a changing environment,” according to memo given to the county commissioners about the contribution.
“Larimer County is rapidly evolving, and the population of Larimer County is expected to increase by 25% by the year 2040 for a total population of 480,126,” the memo stated.
The Larimer Emergency Telephone Authority is building the dispatch center and outfitting it with equipment at its new location in Johnstown with hopes of having it ready this summer, available to spring into action when needed. The cost is $1.3 million, most of which will come out of the authority’s budget and with the $250,000 from Larimer County.
The telephone authority is funded by a monthly surcharge all customers pay on each mobile phone, internet or land line. In Larimer County, the 911 surcharge fee is 70 cents, which Culp said is much lower than the average $1.35 fee among other regions in Colorado.
“We’ve been planning and saving,” said Culp. “This is a critical need we’ve been planning for.”
The $250,000 that Larimer County is contributing will come out of the money set aside to build and open the emergency operations center. With efficiencies and grants, the county will not use the entire budgeted amount, and the commissioners voted 3-0 on Tuesday to give some of the surplus to the dispatch center project.
Culp said the county’s contribution will pay for critical radio equipment for the backup center, which should be open in July. And once opened, officials said, it will benefit the entire community.
“The public benefit is obvious,” said County Manager Linda Hoffmann.
“It’s just without question that this is something the community as a whole needs, and we are very fortunate to be in a position to make a contribution,” she said.

According to Stevens it is a $2.8 million project, $1.4 million will come out of the penny sales tax and the remaining balance will be funds from a general operation bond. He says four departments will call the new headquarters home: EMS, the coroner, 911 dispatch, and fire services. “It centralizes some of the public safety functions,” said Stevens. 

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PITTSBURG, Kan. — The city of Pittsburg and Crawford County have partnered to purchase a new emergency call-handling and management system that will allow residents to text urgent alerts to 911, public safety officials announced earlier this week.“The new system will allow dispatchers to text with people and help us better locate mobile phone calls,” said Jay Byers, deputy city manager, in a statement. “More importantly, it’s the platform for future technologies that will be coming down the road, like being able to send pictures and video from your mobile phone directly to 911 and other emerging public safety advances.”The city and county have been working for the past two years to replace old telephone systems with an internet-based 911 system. The new system provides everything that emergency dispatchers need to manage calls from any device in any format. Dispatchers at the Pittsburg Police Department and Crawford County Sheriff’s Office will be able to answer text-to-911 calls like any other call from their desktops. They also will be able to pinpoint landline and mobile calls.

Officials say the new system also will allow the city and county to expand their partnership to serve the region by allowing records and call information to be shared in real time.“This is another example of a partnership between the city and the county that focuses on public safety,” Crawford County Sheriff Danny Smith said in a statement. “We wanted a system with more redundancy in the event of a failure on either the city’s end or our own. Should one system go down, the city and county call takers could work at either dispatch center with little interruption of service. This technology enhances our efforts to ensure a safety net is in place should the unthinkable happen.”The equipment was purchased using state funds earmarked for public safety.

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KEYSER, W.Va. — The Keyser City Council on Wednesday night unanimously approved the merger of the city’s emergency dispatch services with the county’s resources. City administrator Jeff Broadwater presented the memorandum of understanding with Mineral County Emergency Services during the board’s business meeting. During the Mineral County Commission meeting Tuesday, President Richard “Doc” Lechliter signed off on it from the county’s end.The subject of the merger, Broadwater said, is something that’s been in discussion sporadically for a decade. It will take effect July 1.
“It’s kind of come to a point where I think it’s in the best interest of the city to do it,” Broadwater said. In developing the MOU, Broadwater said he met individually with the city’s three dispatchers and all three were offered the chance to interview with the county 911 center. One individual did so and will be hired, Broadwater said, and the other two employees have opted to take a severance package and will remain employed through July 1.Through the agreement, Broadwater said, “basically we’re going to relinquish all control of the 911 communications.””The sheriff’s department and all emergency dispatch will be handled in the 911 centers as opposed to calling the city office … where citizens do now,” Broadwater said. “They’ll call 911 like the rest of the county.”The merger will cost the city a one-time fee of $70,000, he said. “What’s necessitating this, if you look back through our financials, the last three years we’ve (been) averaging about a $50,000 loss in the general fund for three years,” Broadwater said. “It’s a pretty staggering number. (City finance manager Bonnie Hannas) and I went through this last week, we’ve lost 53 employees in the last three years. … It’s like we’ve become a training ground.”They expect to save $150,000 through merging with county emergency services, Broadwater said.He said the agreement represents “a step in the right direction” for the city.

“It’s to the point where something needs done, and this is the logical next step,” Broadwater said. “It’s never an easy decision when we talk about the loss of jobs, but to be, to be quite frank about it, we’ve lost a lot more than that in jobs.”Mayor Damon Tillman noted that Keyser residents have already been paying for the 911 center, even though they did not use it.”It makes sense for us to do this,” Tillman said. “It’s better for the community, better for the officers.”Tillman agreed that this was the right time for the merger to take place.”It’s time now. The citizens have paid this fee for all these years, and we haven’t really used (the county system), the citizens of Keyser, but now we’re going to, and it’s going to be a good thing,” Tillman said.County emergency services director Luke McKenzie noted that the county 911 service has already been responsible for dispatching fire and EMS services within the city. The move, he noted, would only affect police services and would also be financially beneficial for the employee who chose to interview with the county.”We’re happy to do it. I think bringing everyone together on one group is going to be better for the entire county as well,” McKenzie said.County sheriff Forrest “Buddy” Ellifritz voiced his support as well.”It’s the right choice at the right time,” Ellifritz said.The council meets next on April 14.

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This photo of one of Fond du Lac County’s multiple dispatch stations appears in the Communications and Emergency Management department’s 2018 annual report. 

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Issue:The Fond du Lac County Board unanimously approved two resolutions last week Tuesday that furthers the process of Ripon transferring dispatch service to the county, which could save the city about $4 million over the next 10 years.The Ripon Common Council went into closed session Monday night to discuss severance agreements for Ripon’s dispatchers.Background:Debates about whether to consolidate dispatch centers with Fond du Lac County took up much of the Ripon Common Council’s time in the months leading up to January.In fact, the Common Council voted on the dispatch change twice. The first time, the Common Council voted 5-3 to keep the dispatch center at its Jan. 12 meeting.However, the next meeting, the Common Council voted 6-2 to consolidate dispatch centers with Fond du Lac County.“The obvious financial benefit and, just as obvious, safety benefit of switching to the county for dispatch does not outweigh the difficulties that it will be to change a scheduling system that will be difficult to change,” Ripon Mayor Ted Grant said at the Jan 25 Common Council meeting. “I agree, but it is something that can be overcome and I’m confident that it can be overcome within that eight-month window.”Since voting to consolidate dispatch centers, the Common Council last month unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding between the city and Fond du Lac County regarding the transfer of dispatch responsibilities to the county.At the Feb. 22 meeting, City Attorney Lud Wurtz explained that the memorandum of understanding acts as a framework for how the dispatch transfer would work moving forward.Status:At last week Tuesday’s Fond du Lac County Board meeting, the board approved a memorandum of understanding between the county and city as well as an intergovernmental agreement related to dispatch.For many years, Ripon resident and County Board Chairman Martin Farrell explained that Ripon has been the only municipality in the county that was providing its own dispatch services while the county was handling all the others.“Now the entire county will be using the Fond du Lac County dispatch center,” he said. “All 911 calls will go there.”Additionally, County Board Supervisor Tom Dornbrook said the transfer of dispatch services would benefit both the city and Fond du Lac County to allow emergency services to be on the same page.“Financially, Ripon was struggling [in] upgrading their center and about 70% of [Ripon’s] cell phone 911 calls were coming to Fond du Lac County anyhow,” he said. “There was some resistance, but I think the above board, good-faith negotiations from our county team convinced the city council that this was best for them too.”Farrell agreed with Dornbrook’s sentiment, and commended Fond du Lac County Communications and Emergency Management Director Bobbi Hicken for going “the extra mile to bring the correct information to the authorities in Ripon.”What’s next?Under the agreement, the county will begin the process of preparing the transfer of the functions of Ripon’s dispatch center to the county-wide dispatch center, which will be led by Hicken. The communications and emergency management director will communicate with city officials and coordinate the transfer to determine the official transfer date.The agreement states that Ripon dispatch staff who choose to apply to work for the county communications center, which will require additional staff to take on Ripon’s dispatch duties, will be guaranteed an interview.In addition, operating costs related to the dispatch center will be Fond du Lac County’s responsibility by 2022, according to the agreement. Those costs include expenses related to staffing, equipment, operations and capital purchases.As a result, $200,000 will permanently be transferred from Ripon’s tax levy base to Fond du Lac County’s tax levy base in 2022, the agreement stated. Ripon will not see additional tax reductions afterward.Another outcome from the agreement is that Ripon will have three voting members on the county’s Administrative Review Board, with one representative from the Ripon Police Department, Ripon Area Fire District and Ripon Guardian Ambulance Service.“I’m confident that this is in the best interest of the city, in this respect, after the decision was made,” Wurtz said at the Feb. 22 Common Council meeting. “… It’s a very good way to accomplish this on behalf of the citizens.”Is there an issue you want us to update?If you’re wondering about something that was in the news but doesn’t have a resolution, send your idea to:Email: news@riponpress.com.Phone: 920-748-3017Mail: 303 Watson St., PO Box 262, Ripon, WI 54971

CHESAPEAKE, Va. – The City of Chesapeake said mobile testing with major mobile carriers is complete. This means they are now fully Text to 9-1-1 operational.City officials said residents in Chesapeake that are experiencing emergencies can now send text messages to 9-1-1 if they need help.Residents are asked to call 9-1-1 if possible, but if they are not in a position to talk on the phone they can text “911” in the “To” field of their phones.Senders will then be be prompted to provide the address of their emergency when their text is received by the Emergency Communications Center and will then be able to chat with the Public Safety Telecommunicator.