By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A state grant will help modernize the St. Joseph Communication Center which serves St. Joseph and Buchanan County law enforcement and emergency responders.
St. Joseph Deputy Police Chief, Jason Strong, says the nearly $1 million grant from the Missouri 9-1-1 Service Board will be used to purchase new equipment from the Comm Center.
“It gets us off of the copper 9-1-1 lines and moves us to VOIP, which is the future of police communication centers.” Strong says. “It gives you redundancy, because it allows us to bring in cable, fiber, and first net so that the Comm Center can continue to take 9-1-1 calls in the event that one of those providers goes down.”
The transition to VOIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol – is already underway.
Strong says the money will be used to move the current Comm Center off of outdated communication equipment into the latest version.
“The way that calls are routed right now is the way it’s been for a long time, analog off of copper lines,” according to Strong who adds that infrastructure is very limited. “And so, it’s becoming very cost prohibitive to stay on copper lines, because they don’t have, like I said, the infrastructure and the equipment to replace it.”
Strong points out the Comm Center serves more than just the St. Joseph Police Department.
“It serves the sheriff’s office. It serves the fire department, rural county. We take medical calls and transfer them to Buchanan County EMS. We serve a lot of different entities,” Strong says. “It takes a lot of coordination. It takes a lot of equipment. I’ve been there. I’ve been in that assignment so I have a tremendous respect for everybody that does that job.”
Work on the project began this month. It is expected to be completed by early next year.
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