Fox Lake expects decision on emergency center today

Will village officials continue to pony up the money needed to cover the cost of the 911 emergency dispatch center?

Or, will they merge the two-year-old facility with neighboring CenCom, and pay a fraction of the cost for upkeep?

Those questions are expected to be discussed in detail tonight as Fox Lake village trustees will review and discuss a consultant's report regarding the future of the 911 center during a committee of the whole meeting.

The meeting takes place at 5 p.m. at the village hall, 66 Thillen Drive. The committee of the whole meets before the official board meeting at 7 p.m.

While trustees -- who were already given a copy of the report -- will not specifically say what consultant Richard Tucker concluded about the emergency dispatch center, Mayor Cindy Irwin said it was "everything we thought it would be."

She said Tucker looked at the cost of the center and measured it against the need to keep emergency dispatching services in house.

She added Tucker doesn't make a definite "that over this" decision in his report, and said that trustees need to make up their own minds in the end.

"It's a good report and answers a lot of questions that were out there," she said. "But now it's up to the board to decide what to do."

The village has been debating the future of the emergency dispatch center since budget hearings determined the village was operating about $700,000 in the red in fiscal year 2007-08.

Trustee Ed Bender was one of the driving forces to keep the dispatch center in Fox Lake when the police station was renovated in 2005. He believes other police agencies should be brought in to help fund its $1 million annual operating expense.

However, Irwin has pushed trustees to merge the dispatch center with CenCom in Round Lake to cut the center's operating costs to about $350,000 annually.

If the merger is approved, CenCom would take over operations and maintenance duties of the center, located in the basement of the village police department at 301 S. Route 59.

Fox Lake would then be charged by CenCom on a per call basis.

Also, the agreement could be written to allow Fox Lake to resume control of the center if officials aren't happy with the arrangement.

After bickering about the situation for two months, Fox Lake officials decided to bring in Tucker to help guide the board in the right direction, Irwin said.

"I'm sure both sides will use what they want to use out of the report on Tuesday night," Irwin said Monday. "My only issue is that, at this point, we need to merge with CenCom or decide to not do it and move forward. We need a final decision."