By: RAYMOND PARTSCH III
Managing Editor
Members of Evangeline Parish Communication District 9-1-1 have started to move into their new state-of-the-art facility located at Industrial Park.
During Wednesday night’s board meeting, held at the new facility, 911 Director Liz Hill informed the board that they paid four movers $10 per hour for three hours of work to move the majority of the administration offices on Saturday April 9, 2016.
“As you can see the administration finally moved in the new facility over the weekend,” Hill said. “This has been a long time coming.”
Prior to the meeting, Hill also gave a tour of the facility to members of the board, as well as Police Jury Secretary/Treasurer Donald Bergeron and former District Attorney Brent Coreil.
During her director’s report, Hill inspired a few chuckles with her announcement about the facility’s phone lines.
“Century Link has installed the phone lines,” Hill said. “The first day we thought we were putting people on hold but we were actually hanging up on them. We got it figured out now.”
Hill also informed the board of some updates concerning the facility.
The eight-radio console that they currently have will need to be upgraded to 12 with the additions of parish municipalities such as the Evangeline Parish Fire District No. 2 and Pine Prairie who agreed to the contract this past week. Turkey Creek and Chataignier are scheduled to vote on whether or not to accept the contract with 911 during their meetings next week.
The board has already received one bid from a local landscaping company concerning laying sod down around the facility, as well as connecting down spouts to the drainage pipes to prevent erosion. The board agreed to seek out another bid for comparison.
The board plans on purchasing new computers for all members of the administration, new computers from the same manufacturer to be exact, but as Hill stated that won’t be occurring for a while.
“Once everything is up and running for a few months then we will get the computers for the administration,” Hill stated.
The board will also start up the interview process for hiring new dispatchers. The board had previously received 25 applicants a few months ago, interviewed most of them and had targeted 10 to be hired. The delay with the move to the new facility though meant the hiring had to be put on hold. A good portion of those potential hires have now gone on to take other jobs.
Hill says she wants everything to be cleared so the new dispatchers can be quickly hired, trained and then start working.
“I don’t want to hire them and train them and have them sit for a month,” Hill said.