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Date: 12/7/2022
WESTFIELD — Southwick switched over to the Westfield Regional Public Safety Center on Dec. 1 and despite a few issues, all agreed it was a successful start.
For the past year, Westfield has been upgrading its 911 dispatch center to also handle calls from neighboring Southwick. Starting this month, emergency calls from Southwick will be received at the shared facility, at 179 Apremont Way in Westfield. People who visit the Southwick Police Station lobby on Depot Street will be viewed on a camera and will be able to speak with dispatchers in Westfield via an intercom.
Westfield Communications Administrator Nina Barszcz said the first day of regional operations went off “without a hitch,” and some calls from Southwick were taken that day. She said part of the regionalization process included speaking with the dispatchers to take suggestions and ideas.
“[We wanted to] make sure they were being taken care of just like the have always been taken care of,” she said.
Barszcz said the dispatchers wanted to be part of the process and aware of any changes to technology, in order that the variations to the process would be as minimal as possible.
“The focus will be dispatching for both communities, learning how the responders in Southwick work, how they’ve operated for some time,” she said. “We want to keep their jobs as common and normal as possible.”
Other than the dispatch center, the two communities will continue to have separate public safety departments. Westfield units will respond to Westfield emergency calls, and Southwick units will respond to Southwick emergency calls, even though the dispatchers between the callers and the first responders are the same.
Barszcz previously said that only one of the current Southwick dispatch operators will be retained, on a per-diem basis, while the rest of the staff will consist of existing Westfield dispatchers.
Southwick Police Chief Robert Landis said that any hiccups in the new regionalization center were addressed on the first day. One small matter was the lobby camera being triggered by passing vehicles.
Landis said part of the reason for regionalization was that Southwick’s dispatch offices would have required a nearly $2 million upgrade. He also said Southwick, as a relatively small town, only had one dispatcher on duty at a time. Westfield has multiple dispatchers on each shift, allowing it to handle several calls at a time.
“Regionalization is something the state has put a lot of emphasis and money towards,” Landis said. “If there was ever a time to do this, it was this time.”
Southwick Fire Chief Rich Stefanowicz agreed that the first day went well, with only small issues arising. He said the statewide push for regionalization also makes sense as fewer people apply to serve as dispatchers. He added that many communities are exploring regionalization to cope with a staffing shortage.
“The dispatcher shortage has been trending in that direction for a couple years — not just them but all first responders,” he said. “With dispatch, it’s a hard job, it really is. It’s hard to train people, they need to have the right mindset.”
One improvement Stefanowicz has seen is the dispatchers giving instructions on medical calls, from simple aspirin for chest pain to how to perform CPR for cardiac arrest. He said that despite the size difference, the two communities have much in common and a longtime mutual aid agreement, which remains in effect.
“We looked for a good fit and found it in Westfield,” Stefanowicz said. “The alternative was waiting three or four years, and someone mandates it. We wanted to have some control over that.”