Mike McCormack Gets It Wrong About Middlebury Dispatch - Gets it Right About Taxes

“We have a communication department that cost the town more than $200 per 

911 call when the average for a regionalized service is less than $30. Regionalization would save the town more than $300,000 per year, but our first selectman will not consider it.”

Michael J. McCormack

Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.*  What is vital here is that the argument is flawed.  It would be quite the price tag for Middlebury Taxpayers, if in-fact, all they were paying for was $200.00 per 911 call.  The problem with the argument is that Middlebury Communications does far more than just answer 911 calls.  

It handles all police dispatch, and anyone with a scanner will tell you that the vast majority of police calls in this town are NOT of a 911 nature. The Middlebury Communications Center also handles Public Works, Buildings and Grounds, Public Health, the Building Department and Animal Control.  Before former First Selectman, Mr. St John, outsourced the Fire and EMS dispatch to Northwest C-Med, our communication center handled these calls as well. The Middlebury Dispatch is the hub of this community. One of the greatest benefits of living in Middlebury is the quality of our Police Department.  They are second-to-none. The Department would not benefit from outsourcing communications, and the Middlebury residents would suffer because of it.

Regionalizing Communications could be an absolute disaster for this town, and a threat to public safety.  This would be especially true in a time of a natural disaster such as a hurricane or tornado. A regional dispatch center could be immediately overloaded and a total communication collapse could be very possible.  Nothing illustrates the importance of local dispatch,  more than the work they did on February 11, 2008, during the Hydrogen Tanker Truck leak on I-84. 

This is one of the main reasons why communications for Fire and EMS eventually has to come back to Middlebury.  But,  it will have to be done right.  There is no quick fix, but a community working together for the genuine benefit of the residents will ultimately come up with the correct solution.  Outsourcing is not the solution.

One of the advantages of a local communication center is that our dispatchers are familiar with the residents who live in town and the roads they live on.   When the 911 call goes out, it is our Police Department who are the “First Responders,” and by working closely with our dispatch center during time-critical events could make the difference between life and death.  If you are having a heart attack, it will be the Police who may ultimately save your life, and not the MVFD. Response time is on their side.  If you have ever needed our police, you will know that they are at your door almost immediately. This is almost unheard of in any other community, and it is one of the services that makes Middlebury a great town to live in.  We don’t want to give that up. With the community growing at such a rate, it is imperative that dispatch remains local.

I believe the taxpayers in Town appreciate Mr. McCormack’s aversion to the currently presented budget. Anyone who values keeping more of their hard-earned pay will certainly be voting against it. We as taxpayers can no longer afford such increases. 

However, heaping all the Town’s woes on the current leadership, who has only been at the Town Hall for barely five months is nothing more than a smokescreen of what is really happening.

It would be more productive if Mr. McCormack, who is wearing both hats of the Board of Finance and Public Works Commission, show some leadership himself, and find ways to cut the Public Works budget and other bloated areas in Town.  The current administration inherited the current problems from the past administration. The some $900,000 in funds reported to be owed to the Town from the “Win/Win” deal could certainly have gone far in alleviating  some of the burden now being heaped upon our taxpayers.

The current administration is attempting to clean up what they inherited, but raising taxes is not the way to endear themselves to this community.  With the high cost of heating fuel, gasoline, and now food, taxpayers are fed up with parting with their hard-earned money.  The Selectmen need to take a proactive, and aggressive approach against this budget and work with the BOF. Government cannot continue to grow, whether it be federal or local and expect the taxpayers to pick-up-the-tab.

* Quote by Aaron Levinstein