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County updates dispatch center for first time in nearly 20 years, hopes to improve safety

By WHIO Staff
By WHIO Staff

PREBLE COUNTY — Preble County now has a new 911 dispatch center that will help improve safety.

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As reported on News Center 7 at 5:30 p.m., Preble County used to have two 911 centers, one run by Eaton police and the other run by the Sheriff’s office.

“Basically we were doing redundant things and neither center was really staffed appropriately to handle a major emergency,” Preble County Sheriff Mike Simpson said.

The two centers merged into one a few years ago. The current center handles hundreds of emergency calls every day.

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When you call 911 for help in an emergency, response times can mean the difference between life and death.

“It’s important. I mean a lot of people get emergencies. And out there [in rural parts of the county] it’s few and far between,” Eaton resident Patrick Boyd.

The last time the Sheriff’s office updated its 911 center was in 2005.

The new center is double the side of the old dispatch center at the Sheriff’s Office and gives dispatchers more capabilities like live security camera feeds from parts of the county.

It even has GPS tracking displayed for deputy cruiser locations.

“We’ve got one center fully staffed and now with updated technology and such that we can, you know, we’re better equipped to handle a large-scale emergency,” Simpson said.

The new center cost about $650,000. 911 Money helped pay for the project, cash collected from our monthly cell phone bills and property taxes that the state of Ohio collects and distributes to counties.

The county and City of Eaton also contributed money to the new dispatch center.

“The citizens we serve and the taxpayers are probably getting a bigger bang for their buck by both governmental entities, Eaton and the county, putting the resources together to have one good system,” Simpson said.

The Preble County Sheriff’s Office also wants to look at a new partnership with school districts with this new dispatch center.

In the event of some large-scale incident at the school, they want dispatchers at the new center to be able to immediately access cameras in school buildings.

That would give another set of eyes on what may be going on in a district.

It allows dispatched and supervisors to give first responders who are actually in the school a better idea of what they’re dealing with.

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