By: ELIZABETH WEST
Associate Editor
Assistant District Attorney and counsel for the Communications Board Nicole Gil addressed a crowded police jury room on Monday about the changes being made to how 911 calls and non-emergency calls will be handled from now on in Evangeline Parish.
In attendance at the meeting were individuals representing Pine Prairie, Turkey Creek, Chataignier, Mamou, Ville Platte, Bayou Chicot, St. Landry, Lone Pine, Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office, and Ward 5 Fire District. Also at the meeting were 911 board members.
Over the years, the Evangeline Parish Sheriff has dispatched for local municipalities in the parish such as: Pine Prairie, Turkey Creek, and Chataignier. This task however, will no longer be the sheriff’s responsibility.
Because the sheriff will no longer be providing these services to local municipalities, these entities, according to Gil, will be required to enter an “intergovernmental agreement” if they wish to receive dispatching services from 911 for non-emergency calls.
For Pine Prairie, Turkey Creek, and Chataignier this service will be provided for a fee of $100 a month if the municipalities choose to enter into the intergovernmental agreement.
If the fire districts wish to receive dispatching services from 911, they will be required to pay 1.5% of their annual millage tax to be provided the service.
For the fire districts, this agreement is subject to change after one year.
“Sixty days prior to this agreement being up, we will look at the data to see what it cost to dispatch for fire districts,” said Gil. “That is data that we do not have, which makes it hard to determine what the cost should be. After one year however, we would have a better idea of the cost.”
Each group represented at the meeting was informed that the deadline for the agreements to be signed by each entities’ board is June 6, 2016.
At the June 6th Evangeline Parish Police Jury Meeting, the jurors will then have to approve the intergovernmental agreement.
Even after everything is approved, dispatching may not begin immediately.
911 Director Liz Hill informed the individuals at the meeting that because her office would now be dispatching for law enforcement, they had to request National Crime Information Center (NCIC) computer equipment.
According to Hill, “NCIC approval could take up to six months, but the federal government has put us on the fast-track to obtaining the NCIC computer equipment that we need.”
All parties involved seemed eager to finally have the issue of dispatching resolved, and for that reason police juror Eric Soileau said, “If we get all of the signed agreements back before the June meeting, the police jury can call a special meeting to have everything approved as soon as possible.”
Official dispatching will begin once the NCIC computer equipment has been approved and integrated into the Computer-aided Dispatch (CAD) system at 911’s new location.