Monday, April 29, 2013

Ketchikan Gateway Borough needs to pay City of Ketchikan every dollar owed

It seems that Ketchikan city taxpayers have been paying for Gateway Borough to dispatch a fire truck or police car.  The Ketchikan Gateway Borough assembly needs to write a check for balance due and pay what amount the City of Ketchikan bills them.  If the borough does not want to do that the other option is form your own or put public emergency service in dire straits.  The other option is have some moron in a head seat in Palmer or Juneau answer your telephone call.  Since Ketchikan has more cab choices than in Anchorage and not such a good bus system.  Offer your dispatch system up for bid who comes up with the best offer you contract with the cab company they assign a dispatcher you offer to computerize their cab dispatch office help train each dispatcher how to dispatch emergency first responders.  Make sure the cab dispatchers are not using the same software that way we do not have cabs responding to police and fire emergencies.  We also need to train the representives or call takers how to be calm so you do not have rude people answer police and fire calls.  This also will have the cab company be able to train their people to be patient and be nicer to their cab driver because you do not talk to a fireman, ambulance person the same way you talk to a cab driver.  Cab driver gets a nicer dispatcher as a result.  Ketchikan could become a test market in Alaska if the Ketchikan Gateway Borough does not want to pay the full amount or negotiate some agreement to pay the City of Ketchikan then contract a cab company to provide EMS and police dispatch service.  If you choose the cab company route I would recommend one company for police and one for fire and EMS this makes it easier for the cab companies.  You do not want some moron in Juneau or Palmer answer EMS, fire and police calls for Ketchikan Gateway Borough this could be a serious problem you want people who know the geography the layout of the land answering those calls not sending a fire across town when the fire is at a different location losing valuable response time due to bad information for someone not familiar with Ketchikan answering those calls.  That is Alaska Yellow Cab call taker and dispatcher not familiar with the layout of Anchorage or answering phone call and just relying on the computer to dispatch a cab having no brains to know how the get a person a cab quicker.  Which is Alaska Yellow Cab has lousy cab service.  Thanks Megan Baldino of Alaska News Now for bringing this too my attention.