The two candidates for the House District 10A seat both voiced opposition to a Minnesota State Patrol plan to consolidate state patrol dispatching centers.
Rep. John Ward, DFL-Baxter, said in a statement Wednesday he’ll “fight until the end” a State Patrol plan to consolidate the state patrol dispatch centers.
The Minnesota State Patrol is working to consolidate the state’s dispatch centers from the current nine locations down to just two. Once this consolidation is completed, the northern two-thirds of the state will be dispatched from the metro area, Ward said in his statement.
The state patrol’s Brainerd operations will transfer to new facilities no later than May 1. Dispatchers at the state’s public safety answering points will be offered a position in one of the two consolidated centers, state patrol officials said.
Chris Kellett, Ward’s Republican-endorsed opponent for the House District 10A seat, said she is also opposed to the consolidation.
Ward raised the concern dispatchers in the metro may not understand the Brainerd area well enough to be effective.
“During the flooding in the northern part of the state, dispatchers received commendations for their excellent work,” he said in a statement. “Their work dispatching MnDOT workers saved roadways, in part because of their excellent knowledge of the local area.”
He also objected to seeing outstate Minnesota jobs going to the Twin Cities area.
“And while many say that government doesn’t create jobs, tell that to the six dispatchers and their families facing the closure of the Brainerd center, who don’t know what they’re going to do,” Ward said.
Kellett said that while consolidation might save money the state shouldn’t put dollars ahead of public safety or possible injuries.
“Brainerd troopers would be dispatched from somewhere else other than here,” the Brainerd woman said. “That could be a detriment to public safety because if they are dispatched from somewhere else it could lead to unintended mistakes because they do not have the knowledge of our area that our current dispatchers have.”
While Ward said it will be difficult to stop the closure of the Brainerd dispatch center, he urged people who agree with him to contact Gov. Mark Dayton, Public Safety Commissioner Mona Dohman, and Minnesota State Patrol Chief Cpl. Kevin Daly.
Contact numbers for those officials are: Governor Dayton: 800-657-3717 or http://mn.gov/governor/contact-us/form/.; Public Safety Commissioner Mona Dohman, 651-201-7160; and Cpl. Kevin Daly: 651-201-7100.
MIKE O’ROURKE, associate editor, may be reached at 855-5860 or mike.orourke@brainerddispatch.com. He may be followed at www.twitter.com/MikeORourkenews.
Comments (13)
Add commentWe have to pay for the tax
We have to pay for the tax breaks for millionaires so people will just have to sacrifice.
rubber hits the road - public safety compromised
with all the 'cut$' and look even the GOP candidate is against this cut in greater Mn! despite all the cut cut cut talk.
You two have it all figured
You two have it all figured out so, looks like we can just
relax and pay our taxes and take no cuts. Because, of course
there are no places to cut in the public sector, no waste,
no duplication, no more cost effective way to do something.
This country is in debt
Taxing anyone more, is not going to get this country out of debt.
You two have it all figured
OK tax the millionaires all you want.
Now, is there anything you could cut to be more efficient?
What should we do
Let's have some specifics on how to cut our bloated government.
It's not what or where you know
"He also objected to seeing outstate Minnesota jobs going to the Twin Cities area." And taking their votes with them.
BNSF safely and efficiently dispatches hundreds of trains across the country every day from Ft. Worth, Tx even though the dispatchers may know little or nothing about the Balls Crossing, Montana area.
Suggested means of de-bloating MN government.
Minnesota's population is about in the middle of the 50 states.
However, the size of the state legislature ranks it fifth with 67 senators and 134 representatives. The only state legislatures which are larger are New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Georgia and New York.
We could cut this body by 25% or more and save money. It isn't as if the communications today would be impacted. They can all twitter us or email us instantly.
Neighboring Wisconsin has a total House and Senate of 132 members. California has only 120 total members in both of its houses.
That would be a start.
I like how Ward's name takes up 95% of this article, while
Chris Kellett's name is put in there twice and once refered to as "the Brainerd woman". Nothing like partisan journalism to wake you up in the morning!
Some emergency response dispatching already occurs elsewhere
Ambulance services in CWC are already dispatched out of the metro and seem to be able to be done well without difficulty. We are no longer in the days where "turning by the big knarled oak tree" are the directions used to dispatch emergency response personnel. With enhanced 911 addressing, latitude and longitude coordinates in GPS systems, and even on-line tools like Mapquest, the notion that you need familiarity with a particular geography in order to get someone to a particular location with speed simply no longer makes logical sense. 80+ county dispatch centers and countless city dispatch centers across the state all fall into the same category of a no-longer-sustainable luxury. Current technology simply makes that notion obsolete and quaint. But that's a political football for another day . . .
Whether people find the economic development component of the argument about where the jobs reside is another question. There is a trade-off for the efficiency of the economies of a scale of a larger, more centralized dispatch approach with the centralization of those jobs, most likely in another community far from here.
Bottom line, this issue is not about public safety; it is about how efficient you want your public services to be and where you want your public jobs to be located.
"The Brainerd Woman"
Like pdnet15, I am also disappointed that the paper referred to the GOP candidate as "the Brainerd woman", and her comments are left at the bottom of the article. I wonder if it is the power of incumbency, or more of Mike O'Rourke's liberal media bias? I've heard scream discrimination so many times, you would think he would jump to Kellett's defense! Hey minnesnowda, you don't like the "cut, cut cut" talk and now you are unhappy she doesn't want to cut local public safety? What makes you so bitter?
Call the phone numbers
Did any of you call the phone numbers in the Dispatch? I did. Seems that Rep Wards feigned indignation is nothing more than election year bluster. This project has been in the works for three years, all of which time Rep Ward has been in office"I'll fight this to the end'. He has done nothing to stop this except today just before the election - I see a pattern here how about you? bet he didnt think anyone would call, surprise, you are busted.
Isn't that an
O'bummer, Ward?
Caught again!