There are automatic shades above two large interior hallway windows that can be drawn down with the push of a button. The room has its own dedicated kitchen and bathroom. It is essentially self-contained.
An emergency bunker in the event of nuclear disaster? Not exactly. It's the North Mecklenburg 911 Communications Center, which, for 18 years has been – and until next summer will continue as – a quasi-joint venture of the Cornelius and Huntersville police departments. On this day — coincidentally just days after the Town of Huntersville authorized its town manager to give the requisite six-month notice to take its dispatch service business elsewhere — members of Leadership Lake Norman Class XV were taking a tour of the center along with other behind-the-scenes spaces at the CPD headquarters.
Two dispatchers were on duty watching the monitors to keep up with locations of patrol cars in both towns and watching the images captured by cameras mounted in two locations around town, while simultaneously answering calls and speaking to both emergency personnel and callers at the same time, all while entering critical data relative to the calls.
It's multi-tasking at its best, and it's what happens around the clock, 365 days a year, in the only other 911 dispatch center in the county outside of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD). And now that more than half the expenses of the center will not be paid once Huntersville departs next summer, the Town of Cornelius is at a crossroads: Is the municipal obligation to provide the bulk of the $724,700 needed annually to operate the center — a figure that increased significantly when the formula used to determine the level of financial assistance response centers should receive was altered by the state — worth the additional expense? Now that Cornelius residents have come to expect a level of service and 24-hour access to the police department, are they willing to foot the bill to keep it? Or, are the apparent savings of permanently shutting down the dispatch center worth farming out 911 services to CMPD, or someplace even farther away?
Those are all questions that will be addressed in the coming months as the Cornelius Town Board of Commissioners, including new members John Bradford and Jeff Haire, begin evaluating the town's future and finances likely starting with the budget retreat in February.
Cornelius Police Chief Bence Hoyle will be there, most likely pitching to keep the dispatch center open. Without Huntersville's call volume there may be some possible cost cuts, but for the most part, operating a 24/7 dispatch center with one less client — it also handles calls for the Davidson College Police Department — requires almost the same number of dispatchers.
"Since we currently have two or three dispatchers working at all times, depending on the time of day, we would only be able to downsize a few positions to keep the current level of service," says Hoyle. "Certainly we would not match cuts dollar for dollar because there is a minimal staffing level we have to be concerned about."
Huntersville and Cornelius were effectively partners in the dispatch center although only Cornelius owns it. Also, Huntersville was responsible for 62 percent of the local operating costs of the center because of the comparative size of the towns, although its call volume was slightly lower than that of the host town.
At the heart of Hoyle's concerns is giving up not only local control of dispatch, but also no control of future costs. Also, once the decision to shutter the dispatch center is made, it cannot be reopened due to another twist in state law related to communication center operations. North Carolina is working to consolidate dispatch services to fewer providers as a cost-control measure. As a result, in addition to sharp reductions in funding for local 911 services – one of the key motivating factors for Huntersville's move – the law prevents the opening of new centers.
"With dispatch, once we give up our 911 Center status, we cannot change our mind," Hoyle says. "State law prevents a 911 Center from reopening once they close as a part of their efforts to force consolidation. So once we pull the plug it is pulled forever, and if CMPD (assuming that's where CPD would go) decides to double our fees, we will have to pay it regardless of what it is. This is the fundamental difference between Cornelius and Huntersville. Huntersville can leave and come back, we cannot."
Among the levels of service that would be most noticeable to Cornelius residents, Hoyle says CMPD or another outside dispatch center would not handle calls that don't rise to the level of emergency, which would be most profound at night. Because of the dispatch center's presence, CPD's doors are open 24/7. That means Mecklenburg County's only current overnight safe haven north of Charlotte would close at night and on weekends.
"If you look at CMPD's guidelines on when to call 911, I would predict 60 percent to 70 percent (of calls currently processed by the Cornelius center) would fall outside those acceptable use policies," says Hoyle. "What do we do with those calls? Do we roll them to voice mail, hire staffing to handle them, etc.? The requests for services at all levels will not stop because we change dispatch centers, so I'm very concerned about that."
Hoyle says the answer to whether or not to keep the dispatch center open lies beyond the bottom line. Cornelius Mayor Jeff Tarte says that whatever the additional cost to keep the dispatch center operating in the post-Huntersville era, it wouldn't necessarily result in a tax increase or in a reduction of other town services, but it would likely prevent the town from executing some of its future capital spending.
"I'm very concerned that we only look at a spreadsheet and not through a citizen's eyes," says Hoyle. "I can't tell a citizen or the (town) board that the service is the same when I know it will not be. ... For citizens, the risk of impact is much greater, especially if they come to the police department and find the doors locked, or have to go through a non-emergency line in Charlotte to try to find the answer to a question in Cornelius."
The town has a history of going its own way in other ventures related to levels of service. It built a new animal shelter, largely with the assistance of a successful fund-raising campaign orchestrated by volunteers, but it does carry continuing costs going forward.
"Why did we start our own animal shelter?" Hoyle asks rhetorically. "That was new cost we would not have had otherwise. It's because we care about level of service. Plain and simple."
