WINDHAM – The shifting of dispatch duties in Windham from the town to county control is on schedule for the anticipated switch, set for Aug. 16, officials said this week.

“The transition is moving along as we expected it to. We’ll be ready to go Aug. 16,” said Windham Town Manager Tony Plante on Monday.

Bill Holmes, director of the Cumberland County Regional Dispatch Center, based on High Street in South Windham, was likewise eyeing an Aug. 16 changeover, when dispatching of Windham fire/rescue and police will cease operations out of the Windham Public Safety Building on Route 202 and move to the Cumberland County Regional Communications Center.

The move to county was fraught with division during Windham Town Council deliberations prior to the council’s May 14 vote to merge. Proponents of the move said the consolidation would help lower Windham’s municipal budget and have little impact on public safety. This year, the merger is set to save taxpayers $135,000. In subsequent years, that figure would approach $210,000 in annual savings. Opponents, including many in the police department, said the loss of local oversight as well as the loss of dispatchers focused solely on Windham would impact public safety.

Seamless switch

To make the Aug. 16 switchover seamless, workers on both sides have been melding systems in anticipation. For the past several weeks, the name of the game has been connectivity and making sure Windham’s information is fed into the county’s systems. Namely, to make sure the computers, phones and radios county dispatchers are operational and updated.

Matt Magill, a shift supervisor at county dispatch, has been spending the last few weeks inputting protocols for how county dispatchers would notify responders in the event of an emergency. Magtill said he expects to have inputted more than 1,000 response plans for different emergencies ranging from car accidents in North Windham to an airplane crash in South Windham, factoring in which units would respond to each different scenario.

“We’re entering predetermined response allocations for a specific situation so when a dispatcher has a call it’s all pre-laid out for them,” Magill said.

Beyond the computer system, Windham’s move to the existing dispatch center will require additional radios and telephones as well as making sure the lines already being used by Windham will seamlessly switchover on Aug. 16.

Regarding the telephones, Holmes said there was some question a few weeks ago whether the lines could be switched over from Windham to the county by Aug. 16. However, after a little prodding, Holmes said he has been “assured” by both Fairpoint Communications, which owns the telephones lines, and Pine Tree Communications, which operates the county’s telephone system, that things will be up and running in time.

“Most of the work is being done by Pine Tree Communications, and they’re the ones, frankly at my request, that moved the schedule up because it’s public safety,” Holmes said.

While most of the transition is running smoothly, the one glitch, which Holmes said won’t affect public safety, concerns some of the Windham files dispatchers have access to currently that won’t be merged into the county’s computer system by the projected changeover date.

Plante said the police database for incident data would still need to be integrated with the county’s database.

“None of these are insurmountable. The dispatchers will have the data available, it just won’t be on the one database,” Plante said.

Holmes explained that some of Windham’s incident history, including reports, evidence and calls for service, are still on Windham’s database, which is accessible by county but is not located on county computers. Windham police Chief Rick Lewsen said the information may not fully be transferred until April.

Opponents to the county merger decried the loss of round-the-clock staffing at the Windham Public Safety Building. After the Aug. 16 changeover, Windham police administration will still be a presence during regular business hours, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. But night and overnight staffing, once provided by dispatchers who are stationed immediately adjacent to the front entrance lobby, will be gone.

In the dispatcher’s place, a telephone will be installed outside the front entrance of the police station, not between the two front doors as had been discussed during council meetings on the matter.

According to Windham police Lt. David DeGruchy, citizens needing help after-hours can use the phone, which connects directly to county dispatch.

Matt Magill, a shift supervisor at the Cumberland County Regional Communications Center in South Windham, has been spending the last few weeks inputting Windham’s emergency response plans into the county’s computer system in anticipation of the Aug. 16 switchover. (Staff photo by John Balentine)