NEW GROUP WILL STUDY COUNTY 911

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- A six-member committee will study the possibility of establishing a county-wide, 911 emergency response telephone reporting system for Cape Girardeau County, officials plan to announce today.

The announcement is scheduled for 10 a.m. during a special meeting at the Cape Girardeau County Commission chambers in Jackson.

This is a joint project of Cape Girardeau County and the cities of Jackson and Cape Girardeau. Serving on the committee are two officials from each of the two cities and the county.

Making up the committee are Cape Girardeau County Emergency Coordinator Brian Miller; county Chief Deputy Leonard Hines; Jackson Assistant Fire Chief Randy Welker; Jackson Police Department Sgt. Richard Knaup; Cape Girardeau Police Department Communications Manager Juanita Henley; and Cape Girardeau Police Sgt. Carl Kinnison.

The Cape Girardeau Police Department is the only county law enforcement agency that currently uses the 911 emergency response telephone number.

Gene Huckstep, the county's presiding commissioner, said over the weekend that he and city officials from Cape Girardeau and Jackson had agreed last Thursday to appoint the committee.

He said, however, that research into 911 systems had been going on here for about the last 1 years. The research involved trips by Miller to St. Charles County and a county in Arkansas to see what those jurisdictions have done in the way of 911 systems, he said.

The commissioner reiterated that the committee is only studying whether a countywide 911 response system would be viable.

"The only way we're going to find out if it's feasible is to appoint some representatives and go, and that's what we're doing.

"I'm a firm believer in 911," Huckstep said. "I support the concept if it's supportable. (But) sometimes we want things we can't afford, and this might be one of them."

Committee members will research the establishment of a 911 system here, figure out its cost, and report their findings, Huckstep said. Members will make recommendations on equipment, finances, network suppliers, and operational procedures.

Huckstep estimated it would take the committee several months to make its recommendations. A press release announcing the committee said the "implementation process" would cover 1 to 2 years.

The commissioner stopped short of estimating any type of cost for a 911 system, but he said the type of network he would like to see used one with state-of-the-art capabilities and features would be quite expensive.

"Maybe I've got my sights set too high, but I don't want to see one that's put in that's not state-of-the-art," he said.

"As I understand it, with true state-of-the-art 911, once you ring the number all the information from the phone is on the screen: who lives there and what their ... physical problems are, and it describes their property." As a result, he said, the research that would need to go into setting up a system would be "astronomical."

Huckstep said county voters would have the final say on whether a 911 system should be established because county residents would have to pay for it, more or less, through a levy on their basic telephone charge. Such a system, he said, would be too much of an ongoing financial burden for the county to foot the bill.

He said he had no idea how much a 911 levy would run per household per month. But hypothetically, Huckstep said, if the levy amounted to 30 cents, voters would have to ask themselves if they felt the service would be worth the extra money.

"I think it's overdue, but naturally people have to be the judge of whether they feel it can save lives or property," he said.

This is not the first time a county-wide 911 system has been publicly discussed. Four years ago, Southwestern Bell Telephone officials proposed such a system, but Huckstep rebuffed them. Huckstep lashed out at the officials one of whom was Craig Felzien, the manager of Southwestern Bell's Cape Girardeau office saying they had only proposed the system to make money, rather than start an emergency service.

This past weekend, Huckstep said 911 systems had been looked at off-and-on over the past four years, but he said the systems were not the state-of-the-art systems that county officials would have liked to have seen.

Also, he said Missouri legislators made a change in the state's 911 law last year that eliminated some restrictions that made the establishment of 911 systems too expensive for many government entities. The law previously restricted the entities from collecting a charge for the 911 service until it went on-line, Huckstep said.

"This would prohibit most places from funding the equipment cost, the installation costs. Up until last year, when the law was changed, it was just a financial burden on whoever tried to do it," he said.

Now, Huckstep said, he understands that the charge for the service can be levied immediately or shortly after the voters approve it.

Reached also this past weekend, Felzien said he is involved with the 911 project because he is Southwestern Bell's representative here. He said he would attend today's meeting "just to listen and see how everyone feels" about the project. Felzien said he looked forward to hearing comments from the county's emergency service providers.

Expected to attend today's meeting to announce the joint project are Huckstep and associate county commissioners Leonard Sander and E.C. Younghouse, Jackson City Administrator Carl Talley, and Cape Girardeau City Manager J. Ronald Fischer. Committee members will be presented to the public at the meeting.