plich made

Anna-Louise Pentland
Contributing Writer

THE debate about
coming on board with
the Greater Vancouver
Regional District’s
emergency communica-
tion system raged on
at the West Vancouver
District council meet-
ing on Monday night.
Peter Martin, general
manager for E-Comm made
his pitch tor the municipality
to join the system. At issuc
are the division of the cost
and who should get first
response. Presently, West
Vancouver District pays
3.95% of the costs for 9-1-)
service but makes only 0.66%
of the calls. This is because
an assessment model is used

‘by the GVRD to determine

costs, while the district
would favour being billed per
use.

“If they’re going to deter-
mine the costs based on
assessments, we get it in the
eye. We have the highest
assessed values in the GVRD.
If we’re going to pay for it,
we want to control it,”
Coun. Allan Williams said.
West Vancouver councillors
want to ensure that their
local emergency services
would get called out first in
an emergency, something
they say E-Comm can’t guar-
antee.

Martin said the shortcom-
ing of the district’s present
system is that callers get the

choice of either fire, ambu- -

lance: or police when they
call. The equipment does not
allow for more than one dis-

7 patch to take place. “A CAD

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(computer-aided dispatch)
system that would be usable
to all three agencies would
cost something in the neigh-
bourhood of $5 million,”
Martin said. The district has
a contract for 9-1-1 service
with the GVRD, the adminis-
trative arm of E-Comm, until
the end of this year. This will
probably be extended until
December 2000 to give the
district more time to decide
whether or not to sign up
with E-Comm. “I think we
need to pursue E-Comm
because it’s going to be state
of the art for the future,”
Mayor Pat Boname said.
Martin estimates eight of
the 37 cmergency centres
targeted are now on board.
“But you have to remember
we go into the Fraser Valley,
past Chilliwack, out to
Pemberton. It’s going to
take three years of develop-
ment,” Martin said. A task
force made up of various
municipal _ representatives,
including Boname, will be
looking at the issue of how
the costs are allocated at a
meeting on Nov. 10. Janct
Calder, 9-1-1 administrator
with the GVRD said it will be
recommending that the
assessment model be: main-

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