Emergency Telephone Systems Board Chairman Larry Ringering said during the June ETSB meeting in Wood River that House Bill 2453, passed June 6, requires the ISP to set up spending guidelines for emergency telephone service providers.
Madison County 911 coordinator Terry McFarland said he was concerned about the ISP’s role in the oversight of county 911.
“I’m not so sure how much better the state police would be than the ICC,” he said, adding he knows little about how the transition will be implemented.
McFarland said he did not even know of an ISP-directed 911 center throughout the state, but added there may be one such entity in some smaller, less financially stable districts.
Madison County Board Member Steve Brazier recalled an instance in which ISP helped him via emergency phone assistance in a rural portion of Illinois east of Madison County.
Brazier said when he was traveling west of Mt. Vernon on Interstate 64 at 2 a.m. and needed service, they dialed 911 for a tow truck and an ISP representative answered the call.
“I don’t know whether or not that’s changed, but that’s unusual,” Brazier said.
He said he does not know why county 911 has to be overseen.
“I thought if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” he said about emergency communications in Madison County, which is financially secure.
According to Madison County Sheriff Robert Hertz, there was a time Illinois State Police District 11 in Collinsville, which covers much of Madison County, did not want to have anything to do with 911.
“They told us, that ‘No, we don’t do that,’” he recalled. “That’s why a lot of that fell on the sheriff’s office to take care of. You call 911 from anywhere close to District 11 it isn’t going in there; they don’t have the system.”
©2014 The Telegraph (Alton, Ill.)
