New Boone County emergency center dedicated on September 11

Boone County officials, and Columbia City leaders gathered on 9/11 to dedicate the new 9-1-1 emergency management center.

The county’s new Emergency Communications Center was opened to the public on Sunday to view the more than 27,000 square foot space that will be the new home to the emergency management and joint communications department.

Voters approved a three eighth cent sales tax in April 2013 to fund the building and technology updates to the county’s emergency communications system.

The center went under construction in January of 2015, with Little Dixie Construction as the contractor.

Chad Martin, the director of Boone County Joint Communications is very excited about all the newly added features that he said will make everyone’s jobs easier. The ability to add more dispatchers is something that the center has been looking forward too.

“We have a more than 20 consoles at our new facility. The old one has eight,” Martin said.

“The new dispatch room is more than 2,000 square feet, which is about three times the size of the police department space,” Joe Piper, deputy director of Joint Communications.

Martin says they will be able to hire up to 49 dispatchers, and are needing 15 more to fill that position which he says has had it’s ups and downs.

Once all the equipment is installed, the county will switch from it’s old 911 system to it’s new one.

The new building features a new emergency operations room, where head officials can meet during disasters, break rooms, meeting rooms, conference rooms, and additional overflow for call center rooms.

The emergency management department moved into the building Tuesday. No move in date has been schedules for dispatchers because of the need to still install new technology to the new center.

All new technology will be installed and replace the current equipment being used at the Police Department, which was purchased in 1991.

If a disaster were to occur in Missouri, Terry Cassil the director of emergency management in Boone County believes the new, larger center will be more efficient for everyone.

The facilities budget was about $22 million. The new center is located near the Boone County Sheriff’s Department at 2145 E. County Drive.