Ryan Maye Handy, The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colorado)

After months of meetings among El Paso County’s top lawmen, the agency that handles the region’s 911 has decided to spend $3.5 million on a backup call center.

Officials with the E9-1-1 Authority Board say the new center is needed for backup when other dispatch centers in El Paso or Teller counties have planned or emergency shutdowns.

Commander Jim Reid, of the El Paso County Sheriff’s office, still maintains that the cash would be better spent on a radio system upgrade due by 2015. The upgrade is technological necessity and is required to keep the system functioning, Reid said.

Reid and interim Colorado Springs Police Chief Pete Carey were among those who lost a fight over the money in August when the E9-1- 1 Authority board voted to use the funds to build the center, which will mirror the training dispatch room housed at the board’s offices in Colorado Springs.

The new center will be larger than a cramped backup facility the authority now owns but has rarely used. In the new center, complete with a backup power system, dispatchers will be able to take calls and communicate on police radios after a disasters.

A portion of the $3.5 million comes from a lawsuit settlement with Qwest Communications, which brought the board more than $6 million of extra spending money. The rest of the multimillion- dollar pile comes from leftover budget funds from 2011, Reid said.

The board, which includes representatives from Colorado Springs and Fountain police and fire departments, as well as El Paso and Teller counties sheriffs’ offices, spent the summer discussing the issue. Some members – mostly on the law enforcement side – wanted the money to be used for upgrades to the radio system that dispatchers use to communicate with cops.

Some police and deputies are still fuming over spending the cash on a backup center.

Reid and four others voted against the plan.

Reid wanted the $3.5 million set aside for a planned radio upgrade to come online in 2015. He’s worried that the new backup center could scuttle those plans.

“I felt that, personally, we should put the public safety above something that can wait,” Reid said.

Former police Chief Richard Myers and former fire Chief Steve Cox joined Sheriff Terry Maketa in writing a letter of protest last year about the backup center, Reid said. In Reid’s mind, the 911 authority does not need to worry about making more space, but instead about getting their calls answered.

“If our software and hardware is outdated, that impacts their ability to answer the phone,” he said.

Jim Grayson, chairman of the E-9-1-1 board, said that the authority has budgeted $7 million over the next few years for the radios. In the meantime, it’s important that the community has options when it comes to backup centers, he said.

“The current center gets very cramped,” Grayson said. “We want the new center to be one that’s used in case other dispatch centers are not available, and for training.”

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