Agencies combine efforts, not administrations ? Consolidated task forces improve services in Weber County, officials say By BRYAN CORLISS_ Standard-Examiner staff Metro government - one administration, over all, indivisible, with services and standards for all. In some parts of the United States, cities and counties have combined into one entity providing all kinds of local government services. It's not likely to happen here in Utah anytime soon, urban planning experts say. But in Weber County, local agencies are inching toward a different kind of consolidation. Instead of combining governments, they've combined forces. The most-important example, insiders say, is the new Ogden/Weber dispatch center. North View Fire District Chief Lynn Froerer calls it "the most important development in my 26 years of emergency service in Weber County." Brad Dee, the Weber County administrator who shepherded the project through, said it's probably the crowning achievement of his public service career. What it has done, Weber County Sheriff Brad Slater said, is provide a joint record-keeping center for all law enforcement within the county. Previously, different agencies kept their own records, and those different record-keeping systems didn't always translate across jurisdictional boundaries. The process of combining the county's three existing dispatch centers into one also illustrates the kind of things the region would face if it tried to consolidate more services, Froerer and Slater said. For starters, there were equipment issues. In the short term, the cities paying for the new joint center will pay more than they were paying to the separate centers, Froerer said. That's because the consolidated center will handle more calls, so it needed a bigger telephone and computer system than any had needed before. Because of the equipment costs, it'll be several years before anyone realizes any savings from the consolidation, he and Slater said. There also were personnel issues, Slater said. "There were bruised egos." Each of the three existing centers was doing a good job, he said. So the rank-and-file employees were upset when told that changes in radio communications regulations required the installation of a new system, and that leaders had decided to build only one, instead of replacing all three dispatch centers. The response was "Don't you like us?" Slater said. "Aren't we doing a good job?" Of course they were, Slater said. But that wasn't the point. The point was it doesn't make sense to build three new dispatch centers when one larger one can do the job better. Slater's office is engaging in another kind of functional consolidation. The sheriffs office has taken over law enforcement duties for six of Weber County's smallest cities: Farr West, Huntsville, Plain City, Uintah, West Haven, and the recently formed Marriott-Slaterville. In the cases of Huntsville and Plain City, the sheriffs department absorbed the existing city police forces. "We combined our resources," Slater said. Now the sheriffs office has precincts based in those two cities, each with four or five officers and a supervising sergeant. In each case, the city residents enjoy the benefit of having a greater number of patrolling officers pass through the community at all hours of the day (Plain City had one full-time officer; Huntsville had several part-timers). The sheriffs office benefits from being able to station officers in those areas, which has cut 10 to 12 minutes off their response times. Even just having the old Plain City police office to work in is a plus, Slater said, because deputies don't have to drive back to Ogden to write reports. "Both the county government and the city government have a better service," he said. It didn't save Huntsville any money, town Clerk Richard Ensign said. But "we're glad we did it. We're getting more coverage. It's more cost-effective." Would it work in the larger cities? Absolutely, Slater said. But only if pursued for the right reasons. Sometimes city leaders use the threat of consolidation with his office as a way to punish unpopular police chiefs, Slater said. That's not right. But if the goal is "better service and more responsible use of tax dollars," then he'll listen, he said. The county's police and fire agencies also have formed consolidated task forces to handle special functions: a countywide major crimes investigative team on the police side, for example, and a county-wide special rescue unit. "We're consolidated in all the areas we need to be," Froerer said. There are some who argue that a big-city police force, like Ogden's, wouldn't be suited for the kinds of problems encountered in Harrisville or River-dale, Slater said. He doesn't buy it. Ogden City officers successfully patrol inner city neighborhoods, and quiet suburbs like Shadow Valley now. Law enforcement "is customizable," he said. "What these people expect is for an officer to get there in a timely fashion, and it's an officer they know. It doesn't matter what color the shirt or the shape of the badge," he said. June 11, 2000 491