City Rejects 9-1-1- Merger with Revere

It looks like 9-1-1 will still be a local call in Chelsea.

 

City Manager Jay Ash indicated this week that Chelsea has rejected a plan to merge 9-1-1 dispatch services with Revere and Winthrop – a three-city collaborative funded in part by state grants that would have been located in the Revere Police Station.

 

Ash said that Chelsea – which currently has a much more updated system than the two other communities – is happy with what it has.

 

“We did decline the Revere regionalization effort,” said Ash. “At this time we’re satisfied with what we have here and are working on a much larger regionalization effort. We wanted to make sure Revere had the opportunity to do what it wanted to do as soon as it did and we weren’t prepared to go forward on that.”

 

Revere Mayor Tom Ambrosino and Revere Police Chief Terence Reardon said at a public meeting in Revere on Monday night that they were disappointed with Chelsea’s decision, but that they would begin looking for another municipal partner similar to Chelsea.

 

No official negotiations have transpired, but names like Saugus and Everett have been thrown out as possibilities.

 

Winthrop will still participate, but with only two communities involved in the effort, Revere stands to lose a significant chunk of state grant money that they were expecting.

 

Despite that news, Revere City Councillors voted Monday to go ahead with a $1.2 million bond authorization to pay for the equipment and software for the new regionalized 9-1-1 center.

 

At that same meeting most Revere Councillors voiced disappointment in Chelsea, with one of them noting that Chelsea’s departure is ironic as he believes much of the crime coming to Revere originates in Chelsea.

 

While Revere and Winthrop have antiquated 9-1-1 systems, Chelsea has long had a much more professional and advanced 9-1-1-dispatch system.

 

It is believed that the benefits of joining the Revere effort would take Chelsea sideways or backwards, rather than forward.

 

Nevertheless, Ash has hinted several times that Chelsea is working on a very large municipal conglomeration that would combine 9-1-1 dispatch and several other services. The details of that potential effort, however, have not been made public yet.

 

 

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