Carpentersville board OKs contract for new 911 dispatching service

Despite concerns from union leaders and dispatchers, the Carpentersville Village Board took another step toward leaving QuadCom, the 911 emergency dispatch center it helped co-found, for Southeast Emergency Communication.

Trustees this week unanimously — and without discussion — approved an agreement with SEECOM, based in Crystal Lake, to provide 911 emergency dispatch services for the village starting in May 2027.

Earlier this year, the board authorized a formal withdrawal from QuadCom, giving the agency the 12-month notice required under its contract with the agency.

Carpentersville was one of the founding members of QuadCom, which provides dispatch services not only for the city’s police and fire departments but for Barrington Hills police, East Dundee police and fire district, Rutland-Dundee First Protection District, Sleepy Hollow police, South Barrington police, and West Dundee police and fire.

“Quite honestly, I am shocked and saddened by the action the village of Carpentersville apparently is taking to abandon nearly 50 years of progress,” resident Kevin Rynders said at the board’s Tuesday meeting. Rynders has more than 29 years of experience in fire service and worked under Village President John Skillman, who retired from the Carpentersville Fire Department in 2016.

QuadCom came into being because local fire departments didn’t work together in the mid-1970s, he said.

“Each was their own entity and had its own ideas on how to train and how to operate at emergency scenes,” said Rynders, who noted that emergency scenes were “chaotic and dangerous” because of it.

When QuadCom was established, departments were able to work efficiently and safely by creating a unified dispatch center that provides immediate responses to emergencies, he said.

“Across the state, our operation is a model that others follow and envy,” he said. “There has been minimal discussion on the significant decline in the level of service that will occur, specifically response and arrival times.”

Times may be affected because SEECOM is on a different radio frequency than QuadCom, requiring mutual aid to be dispatched through phone calls, Rynders said.

“When you add seconds to the front end of these calls, you are not moving numbers on a spreadsheet; you are moving the outcome,” he said.

Rather than just criticizing QuadCom, village officials should “put your efforts on making QuadCom better instead of taking your ball somewhere else,” Rynders said. “Together, folks, we can do more, and we can do better. … If you proceed with this move to SEECOM, I feel you are making a mistake.”

Carpentersville officials have cited numerous concerns about QuadCom’s staffing levels and the desire for it to offer additional services, like drone technology and a social worker program.

Another factor is the cost savings. The move would save the village about $2 million over five years.

Mark Glowacki, a 13-year veteran emergency dispatch operator with QuadCom who previously worked for SEECOM, said the issue isn’t about differences between competing agencies.

“I have come to realize there is one resource that most stands out as the most important resource to 911 communication, residents and first responders alike: time,” Glowacki said.

Right now, QuadCom provides a dual response between police and fire departments in Carpentersville, East Dundee and West Dundee. “They respond in sync with each other,” Glowacki said.

He said information takes time to gather, transfer and disseminate, and the switch means there will be a delay in response times.

Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The (Elgin) Courier-News.