Zanesville looking to hire dispatchers to take 911 calls
ZANESVILLE — The beating heart of the city's emergency response needs new blood.
The city is seeking to hire four dispatchers. The current group "being as dedicated as they are to the public, they are working long hours of overtime, and on days off, to make sure there is someone to answer the phone," said Doug Merry, the city's Public Safety director.
Dispatchers take 911 calls and non-emergency calls from the public, and send Zanesville Police Department officers to where they are needed, or the Zanesville Fire Department to fires and other emergencies.
"Without dispatch, the police, fire department and ambulances going out on 911 calls ceases to exist," said Captain Chris Phipps of the Zanesville Police Department, who oversees the city's dispatch center. "They are the beating heart of this entire department."
The center takes more than 35,000 emergency calls a year, plus thousands more than don't turn out to be emergency calls. Without them, "We wouldn't be able to do much of anything other than hope to stumble across crime as it happens," he said.
New dispatchers will have a home. Opened last month, the new dispatch center was years in the making. Phipps visited other dispatching centers and attended conferences get ideas for the new center.
"When we redesigned the dispatching center about 10 years ago, we thought that would be all we would ever need," Phipps said. Instead, the technology has grown, to the point there would simply not be any more room to add more, like text-to-911 screens as that technology came online.
The new center is also more secure. Originally on the ground floor, the center was designed to be more public-facing when it was built in the 1960s. There were far fewer phone calls back then, Phipps said, and it was noisy as well, being located right next to the lobby where Municipal Court attendees entered and exited.
Now, the center is located in the heart of the city's Public Safety Center, with several layers of security. New desk, built and installed specifically for the city, now hold five monitors, with room for more if needed.
Monitors show the computer assisted dispatch display, the records management system, LEADS information for warrant and drivers license checks, a text-to-911 screen and the radio console.
With additional desks, the city hopes to eventually have three dispatchers on duty 24 hours a day, Merry said.
All that information means prospective dispatchers need to be able to keep track of a lot of information, Merry said, and be technology savvy. It is also a high-stress job, Phipps said, but for those who are cut out for the job, they love it.
It can also be a stepping stone to other departments, Merry said, and an ideal way for an 18-year-old to get a leg up on becoming either a firefighter or police officer when they reach the departments' age requirement.
"They will learn the other side of things," he said, like how to deal with people, the computer entries, and when they turn 21 they can take the test "and move into a different department if they desire, he said.
The benefits are good too, Merry said, including a good retirement package. The city will provide training, Phipps added. "We will train everyone we can," he said, "but it takes a special kind of person to work here."
The city will take applications until the end of the month. For more information, visit https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/zanesville?
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This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: Zanesville seeks emergency response dispatchers
