SCOTT CITY: OFFICIALS DISCUSS 911 SYSTEM

SCOTT CITY -- Officials in Scott City are considering implementation of a 911 emergency telephone system that would require approval of city voters.

At Monday's City Council meeting, Mayor Shirley Young said she and Les Crump, chief of fire and rescue, met last week with officials of Southwestern Bell to discuss the system.

Young said it is hoped the measure can be put before voters in November. The council took no action on putting it to a vote.

Crump said the system would be made available to all residents within Scott City's 264 telephone exchange. He said the service would be the "enhanced" 911 system, which immediately displays the address of the caller to the 911 dispatcher.

The city has a seven-digit emergency number and does not have automatic address display.

"The big advantage is the instant tracing" of the call, Crump said. "When someone calls who doesn't know their address, it just draws out the process."

Crump said the address display is most needed when a child calls and doesn't know his or her address. Sometimes, he said, the dispatcher has to question a child for a long time before it becomes clear where the child is.

Crump said that in visits to schools he has found that some children believe the city already has a 911 system, something he attributes to the popularity of the CBS television show "Rescue 911."

If residents vote to implement the system, Young said it would be 12 to 15 months after the vote before the system would be operational, making a spring 1993, start-up date likely.

During that time, she said, telephone company officials would prepare data to use with the system and collection of an initial fee would begin.

People who reside within the 264 telephone exchange would be charged 15 percent of their base phone bill for those 12 to 15 months to allow an initial fee of about $26,000 to be collected. The base bill does not include long-distance calls.

After the system is in place, the cost per user would drop to about 5 percent of the base phone bill, she said.

Citing an average, residential phone bill, Young estimated that during the initial 12-to-15-month period, residential users would pay a maximum of $1.20 per month for the 911 service. After that, the cost per residential user would drop to between 30 and 40 cents per month. The cost would be more for businesses, she said.

Crump said he considers the cost nominal. "It's a real, small fee for someone to pay to possibly save someone's life," he said.

With the enhanced 911 system, Crump said, the dispatcher would know if anyone in the household has a pre-existing medical condition or is allergic to certain medication.

Crump said the city's fire and rescue squads get an average of about 32 emergency calls per month.