Janet Boland, 911 coordinator for the Ashtabula County Emergency Management Agency, said misappropriated street numbers or addresses assigned by a municipality independently of the agency’s computer-aided dispatch are responsible for a handful of emergency responses to the wrong location within the last year.
“If I say your address is 10 South St. and you call your address 10 Route 20 — therein lies the problem,” she said.
The county auditor’s office has its own mapping system, as does the county EMA and the county Board of Elections, while the sheriff’s office maintains a separate computer-aided dispatch system.
Boland said if one detail is changed on any of those systems, it could affect an array of other county organizations. Further confounding the issue is identically named roads in separate townships or villages.
“If all those don’t line up, it’s not going to plot properly, or it’s going to pick the closest” address, which leads dispatchers to make a judgment call, she said. “That’s why it’s vital that we all get on the same page.”
County Commissioners President Daniel Claypool said erroneous data have even forced some residents to vote provisionally. But the hindrance to public safety is more pressing.
“From a dispatch standpoint, they’re looking at that (computer-aided dispatch address) and taking it as gospel,” he said during the Tuesday board of commissioners meeting. “There’s just no room for error there. We’ve come light years away (from the old 911 response system), but we’ve got to nail this one problem down.”
The mapping systems synchronize with Columbus-based Digital Data Technologies Inc. Officials are looking to transition to a countywide computer-aided dispatch system, called a Master Street Address Guide, but need support from all municipalities in the county, as well as residents who live on private roads.
Boland said a county address planning workgroup, which was created about three years ago and meets every three months, has yet to schedule its first 2015 meeting. Turnout to these meetings has not been consistent, however, and spikes only when municipalities are reacting to the county’s street address woes.
“As far as the communication with the other agencies it’s much, much better,” she said. “Conneaut and Ashtabula city will send all of their information ... it’s just not as consistent as I wish it was.”
The EMA has sent letters to residents living at problematic addresses suggesting they permanently change their address, but the response has been weak, Boland told the commissioners.
Updating utility accounts or other billing information can prove a painstaking process, said Commissioner Casey Kozlowski.
“The three organizations that are working on this database need to sit down and work this one out,” Claypool said.
©2015 the Star Beacon (Ashtabula, Ohio)
