Blaine County residents should enjoy the additional safety and security afforded by Enhanced 911 services by late July or early August. What's more, all county residents will benefit from the new system, which was not clear until last week.
Following a two-hour executive session Wednesday, May 11, the Blaine County Communications Center Board issued a recommendation to the Blaine County Commission to sign contracts with companies that own the lines that will deliver information to dispatch centers in Ketchum and Hailey.
The board signed off on the resolution 2-0, with Commission Chair Sarah Michael absent.
"We had to look at all the options available to carry the transport," said Blaine County Chief Deputy Sheriff Gene Remsey, who has worked in an advisory capacity for the communications center board.
Before the Wednesday morning meeting, board members were concerned that coverage would not include Smiley Creek to the north and Magic Reservoir-area communities to the south. But the board eventually uncovered a workable combination.
"We're back on schedule," Ramsey said.
Communications center board members originally said E-911 would be up and running by July 2004. A delay bumped estimates back to December 2004, and now projections are for the first phase of the project to be complete by July 2005. The first phase will include connection of all land locked telephone lines to the E-911 system.
The second phase will include implementation of equipment to detect the origins of calls that are made to 911 from cellular telephones.
"Wireless is another whole ball game, but you have to have this system up and running in order to get it," Ramsey said.
County voters approved the E-911 system in November 2002, enabling a $1-per-month charge to be assessed on each telephone line in the county to fund the project. Since that time, the effort has faced a number of snags, including the politics of appointing the communications center board and the technical and financial difficulties associated with putting the system in place.
When a new sheriff's office, jail and communications center is built in Hailey, the Ketchum and Hailey dispatch centers will be combined under one roof.
