Brazos County leaders propose joint community emergency operations and dispatch center

Brazos County leaders propose joint community emergency operations and dispatch center (kbtx.com)

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - Monday night’s storms have everyone’s thoughts on public safety. The storms also serve as a reminder of how vital effective communication is between multiple public safety agencies. As Brazos County continues to grow and more people call Aggieland home, some emergency services are feeling growing pains.

As proposed, the new community emergency operations and dispatch center will house the Brazos County 9-1-1 dispatch center, Brazos County ECOC, and dispatch centers for the cities of Bryan and College Station along with the Texas A&M University Police Department.

Currently, Brazos County, Texas A&M, and the cities of Bryan and College Station all have separate dispatch centers which all run on different software. County leaders say they would like to get everyone on the same system and in the same location with the Office of Emergency Management in an effort to improve communications and public safety countywide.

Former Brazos County chief deputy sheriff Jim Stewart is leading the cause as special assistant to the county judge. Stewart says lessons learned over the last several years prove now is the time to improve public safety.

“It’s an opportunity to continue to provide for the constituents of Brazos County,” said Stewart. “Through everybody coming together through the pandemic and working together, this is just a continuation of that.”

“Whenever an incident occurs, the natural flow of information is from the individual on the street, be it the police officer, firefighter, or paramedic to the dispatch center and then on, up from there as the incident might grow, and that’s where the EOC comes into place. So there’s a natural synergism between these two operations that we’d really like to capitalize on.”

Brazos County 9-1-1 answers and dispatches more than 800,000 calls each year. Director Patrick Corley says they’ve outgrown their space and the move is necessary.

“From an operational perspective, it just allows us to communicate so much more effectively if we’re all running the same dispatch software. If we’re all sitting physically in the same space, we can share that information much more effectively than we can today,” said Corley.

The plan to consolidate the departments comes with a big price tag. Early estimates show the new facility and software would cost around $18 million. Brazos County Judge Duane Peters says funding options for the new facility are still being discussed.

“Whether it’s borrowing money that we’ll all participate in a note, I’m not sure. Those are all things we’re still talking about,” said Peters.

“It is a lot of money, but if you consider what each of us is spending right now in terms of a lease, I think that money may be better spent towards the facility that we own jointly,” said Corley. " So right now we both have the need to expand, do some remodeling and so forth. We could do that in our current facility to some extent, but should we continue to pour money into a leased facility? Or would it be wiser to take what we’re spending now and put it toward a facility that we own?”

Leaders say the facility is needed and it’s all in the name of safety.

“What it amounts to is how can we best make the citizens of Brazos County safer than what they are today,” said Peters.

Not all commissioners were in agreement at Wednesday’s meeting. Some would like to see if existing space owned by the county will work for a new facility, while others would like to hear more input from the cities involved and Texas A&M.

Peters says these are the early steps in the process and nothing has been set in stone.

“If we can get everybody on the same page then maybe we can move forward,” said Peters.

Stewart says he is confident everyone will eventually come to the table and agree on the proposed center.