In November of 2007, the City of Bellevue contracted with the Blaine County Sheriff's Office to provide law enforcement services.  Service began on December 1, 2007 as Lt. Ron Taylor took over as the Bellevue Marshal with a staff of four deputies and an administrative assistant. The staff are on special assignment to the Marshal's Office and under the command of the Sheriff's Office. The Bellevue Marshal's Office is located at 117 East Pine Street in Bellevue, Idaho.

 

 

The Road to Consolidated Dispatch

Equipment Modernization
In the past our County Communication Officers were required to perform at a high level of skill despite lacking up to date tools and technology. The Sheriff's Office has been diligently working on a multi-year project to modernize our systems with Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD), Geographical Information System Mapping (GIS), and Enhanced 911, with an interface to Record Management System, (RMS) to assist Communications Officers with their increased workload. As a result of this effort, the Communication Center now has some of the most modern equipment available to assist in their life saving duties.

E-911
Another major accomplishment is the E-911 system. In November of 2005 Blaine County's 911 platform was switched over to the new equipment for the Enhanced 911 emergency communication system providing service for the businesses and residences of the Wood River Valley. In December 2006, after performing an extensive series of system tests and fine tuning of the data to ensure the correct longitude and latitude of the wire and wireless caller, the system became functional for both land lines and cell phones. Enhanced 911 is designed not only to show the caller's name, phone number and physical address to the Communications Center from the moment the call is made, but to automatically determine the jurisdictional boundaries and appropriate responding agency. The enhanced system replaces the previous 911 system that depended completely on the caller to tell the Communications Officer their location, name and phone number. Many callers can't answer all these questions for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is a normal panic mode that takes over in emergency situations. Precious time is lost while the Communications Officer attempts to gather the location information so a responding unit can be sent. Timely and efficient emergency dispatch can make a huge difference in life and property saving situations.

CAD
The Communications Center received a significant technological modernization with the implementation of Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD); an essential dispatching tools in the modern age. The CAD provides for real time data flow both to and from emergency units via wireless mobile data computer systems and interfaces with GIS maps and E-911 automated phone number and location information to assist in directing units to an incident. The CAD is used by Communications Officers to log, sort and store all call information in a retrievable location. This includes information such as the name of the person calling, the exact location the call is made from, the type of incident and/or vehicle involved and the name of the Communications Officer taking the call. The CAD records all officer related times including the time of the call for service, the time an officer or emergency unit is dispatched, the arrival time on scene and the time the officer is clear from the scene. The CAD can provide data directly to officers in their vehicles and officers can enter data from their vehicles directly into the case report, saving precious time. In situations when radio silence must be maintained such as a stakeout, the CAD can provide quiet information messages to either the officer's cell phone or vehicle. The CAD then electronically coordinates with the Records Management System (RMS) and integrates the data directly into the officer's report.

RMS
The RMS project is massive and technologically complex undertaking that is a significant industrial achievement. The project includes the development of a wide area network that now connects the Hailey Police, Ketchum Police, Sun Valley Police and the Blaine County Sheriff's Office and the Bellevue Marshal's Office. This network then allows all the area law enforcement to connect to and use a single Records Management System (RMS) rather than each agency purchasing and maintaining its own database. The RMS stores and links all police records allowing multiple law enforcement agencies to use the same database. The RMS collects information entered by the CAD on any contact with a particular person, vehicle, property, and suspected or confirmed gang affiliation into a master file. Having a single source law enforcement database assists valley agencies in solving crimes with information that they might not have access to otherwise and provides a huge cost savings to taxpayers. The RMS automatically collects statistical crime data that previously required manual compilation and has the capacity to interface with the Prosecutor's Office and Probation Department to provide full access to pertinent data and reports. Each participating agency contributes to the cost and annual maintenance of the system, and to the salary of an administrator who diligently works to maintain the integrity of the database. The RMS project is an unprecedented and unique modernization that equips Blaine County law enforcement to perform their duties more efficiently and cooperatively.

Consolidation
One of the Sheriff's Offices major accomplishments is the consolidation of the Blaine County Communications Center and the Ketchum Communications Center. As of July 2007 all the technological improvements were in place to allow the ability for the two communication centers to be able to work as one and the centers were joined together into their own separate Emergency Communications agency. Additionally a new director was hired to head up this agency. One of Director Bob Greenlaw's first major challenges, now that the centers are working together, will be to combine them physically into one space. A new modern communication center is being built in the new Public Safety Facility to aid in this endeavor. In the meantime, the E-911 system, CAD and Mobile Data System (MDT) link the Ketchum Communication Center to the Blaine County Dispatch, creating the capability for redundancy during an emergency and allowing both centers full access to the information being generated to assist each other when needed. Calls for service are routed from either communications center to any and all patrol vehicles or MDT equipped units responding to the call. Many of the modernizations at the Sheriff's Office were integral in creating this ability to work together in dispatching and responding to law enforcement, fire and EMS incidents throughout the county.