Adams dispatchers give their take on closure debate

Adams dispatchers Tony Piscioneri, left, and John Panseczhi... (Ryan Hutton/North Adams Transcript)

By Ryan Hutton
Posted: 04/20/2011 12:42:00 AM EDT



Wednesday April 20, 2011
North Adams Transcript
ADAMS -- The Selectmen and Finance Committee have come down on opposite sides of whether to close the local emergency dispatch center and contract with the Berkshire County Sheriff’s Department for the service, but what do the Adams dispatchers have to say on the matter?
With the Selectmen voting for the change to go before Town Meeting and the Finance Committee deciding not to recommend it, dispatchers Anthony Piscioneri and John Panseczhi took some time Tuesday to give their thoughts before Town Meeting votes on the move this summer.
"We’re a small town. We deal with the same people almost everyday," Panseczhi said. "We know family medical histories. We know if an older person has been taken to the hospital four times for a heart attack. That’s information to pass on to the ambulance service, and we can do it without quizzing a panicked family member when they call."
Panseczhi said it is important for emergency personnel to stay concentrated on a major incident when it is occurring. Because Adams is a small town, he said, dispatchers usually have only minor calls coming in during a major accident, fire or arrest.
"We don’t have three major incidences going on all at once -- one in South County, one in North County and one in Pittsfield," he said. "We don’t have to tell a fire chief to hold on at the scene of a fire while we take another call. Š That’s not
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saying anything against the Sheriff’s dispatchers. I’ve got a lot of respect for them and the job they do, but they’re already dispatching for 23 communities."
Piscioneri said that all three full-time dispatchers -- Piscioneri, Panseczhi and Tom Romaniak -- are members of the Alert Hose Company and work closely with the police department since the dispatchers are based in the station.
He said they can save an incident commander time by calling the electric company or gas company in the event of a fire or car accident in-between radio calls -- allowing the person in charge on the scene to concentrate on making sure a fire is put out safely or a person is removed from a wreck carefully.
"Do the Sheriff’s dispatchers know that a few houses down from the DPW garage is a little, barely paved road called Evens Street?" Panseczhi said. "It goes to a single house where the Norcross family lives. That’s the stuff we know."
"We have Summit Street, Summit Lane, Summit Avenue in town," Piscioneri added. "We know the difference between all of them."
Piscioneri said having that personal knowledge of the town and its people also comes in handy when discerning how urgently emergency services need to respond to a call. For example, he said, they may get a call from someone threatening to harm themselves, but they know the person has a few issues and has made threats like this before.
"That doesn’t mean you dismiss them, but maybe you talk to them for a couple minutes, and that’s all they needed," Piscioneri said. "If you know them and their history and they just wanted someone to talk to and say ‘I’m OK now’ and hang up, that saved an officer’s time on the streets.
"It all goes back to the question of ‘can you put a price tag on knowing your town and your people?’ "
The town has estimated that closing the local dispatch center could save close to $200,000 per year with a price tag of roughly $20,000 for contracting with the Berkshire County Sheriff’s dispatch. No details have been worked out on whether that number will increase over the years or if the Alert House Company and Adams Ambulance Service will have to pay additional dispatching fees since they are separate entities with "handshake agreements" with the police for dispatch services.
Last Thursday, the Finance Committee wanted more details on an arrangement with the Sheriff before recommending it to town meeting.
Piscioneri and Panseczhi said that they agree with the Finance Committee.
"When they proposed eliminating the dispatchers two years ago and it didn’t go, the town should have formed a committee to sit down and discuss this then," Panseczhi said. "They should have gotten the police chief, the fire chief and the head of the ambulance service, the DPW and forest warden to sit down, meet regularly and work it out."
To reach Ryan Hutton,
email rhutton@thetranscript.com.