Hailey officials refused to sign an agreement Monday night prepared by Blaine County officials to settle a dispute over the city's funding share for the recently consolidated E-911 emergency dispatch system.
At a council meeting Monday night, City Councilman Fritz Haemmerle took issue with language in a memorandum of understanding that County Commission Chairman Tom Bowman is circulating to cities and emergency responders in the county. The document outlines terms of service for the county-operated dispatch service, and the fees cities will pay for it, for fiscal year 2009.
The City Council agreed to pay $64,700, in 12 monthly installments, for its share of the dispatch service through Sept. 30, 2009. They'll keep paying that as long as the level of emergency dispatch services in Hailey are not decreased.
Hailey's share of the cost used to be much larger: about $258,000. That number was based on the city's percentage of emergency call services. But after heated negotiations over the past two months, the city's costs were lowered. To cover the difference, the county agreed to place a ballot initiative on the Nov. 4 election schedule.
If approved by the necessary two-thirds majority of county voters, the dispatch override measure would not begin paying for dispatcher salaries until 2010. Until that time, the county and local cities will have to fund the salaries out of their own budgets.
But Haemmerle said Monday that the county's proposed document "singles out" Hailey as not agreeing to a "full share" of payment for dispatch services.
Haemmerle and others on the council maintain that Hailey's elected officials were not at the table while dispatch funding plans were developed by a countywide users' group of emergency service providers.
"We still don't know how many dispatchers are required," Haemmerle said. "We are the only city that is being asked to formally agree to this."
Bowman assured Haemmerle on Monday that emergency dispatch services would not be decreased under the MOU plan. He suggested the formation of a "joint powers board" of city, county and emergency personnel to avoid confusion on dispatch funding in the future.
"The cities of Ketchum and Sun Valley have the perception that they are subsidizing the city of Hailey on this," said Commissioner Tom Bowman at Hailey City Hall Monday night. "If the referendum does not pass, the issue of whether or not cities have to pay will likely be settled by third-party mediation."
During the Blaine County Commission's regular meeting Tuesday morning, county officials said they are disappointed by the reluctance Hailey leaders are showing to sign on to the agreement.
But Blaine County Administrator Mike McNees said Hailey wasn't being singled out. He said Hailey is already taking care of its own administrative calls, which are routed to message machines after business hours.
"That's the only way they are being singled out," he said. "They don't
want that (administrative service)."
Hailey Police Chief Jeff Gunter said that mobile data terminals in three of six police patrol cars would be used to make background license plate checks to reduce Hailey's dispatch calls.
Gunter or an assigned representative will attend all dispatch users' group meetings in the future and report back to the City Council to avoid confusion over dispatch funding agreements in the future.
In other Hailey news:
· Following recommendations by the Hailey Environmental Leadership Program, the City Council voted to meet a 15 percent reduction of carbon emissions in city buildings and automobiles by 2015.
· Sheriff Walt Femling received final plat approval, and an alternative affordable housing plan, for his 12-unit condominium redevelopment on Croy Street.
