KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM/FM) — Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller is trying to figure out how a funding plan for consolidated emergency dispatch failed by over 7,200 votes Tuesday.
Campaign advocates were promoting the use of a phone surcharge to fund the combination of five emergency dispatch centers, claiming coordination would shave time off emergency response.
He said the campaign should have done a better job educating voters.
“We were hearing, ‘Hey! Just so you know, I voted no on this!’” Fuller said. “We would ask, ‘Well, why?’ ‘Well, that’s what we thought you wanted.’”
However, he also admits the proposal to hike the monthly 911 surcharge from 42 cents to $2.30 may have been too steep for some people to support universally.
“It’s dollars out of their pocket and they worry,” Fuller said. “We’re hoping we can help people understand the importance of consolidation and why it must go forward.”
And go forward it will.
“We’re going to be out asking (voters) about what it is we can do different to help them understand what it is we’d like to do,” Fuller said.
Consolidation advocates will discuss how best to ask that question the next time they meet, Fuller said.
The presence of the Fraternal Order of Police may have also had an effect, Fuller said. The union intervened late, investing in anti-consolidation billboards, radio advertisements and yard signs, possibly violating local and state election laws in the process.
The FOP argued consolidation would have hurt county taxpayers. They also claimed FOP members working as dispatchers would have been forced to reapply for jobs they already held.
