By Evan Lips, Lowell Sun (Massachusetts)

BILLERICA — The town will no longer participate in talks to enter a regional emergency-dispatch plan after the Board of Selectmen voted Monday night to stick with the dual fire and police systems already in place.

The proposal, touted by the Northern Middlesex Council of Governments, calls for nine Merrimack Valley towns to enter into a regional-911 agreement, but Billerica’s rejection, combined with Westford’s decision to opt out, means only a maximum of seven municipalities are left.

The amount of remaining towns affects potential savings. If all nine communities (Billerica, Dracut, Westford, Dunstable, Lowell, Pepperell, Tyngsboro, Chelmsford and Tewksbury) had joined, Billerica would have saved $218,000 per year, according to AECOM, an engineering-consulting company that has conducted nationwide regional 911 studies.

NMCOG Executive Director Beverly Woods said yesterday that a lot of opposition to regional 911 systems comes from a “distrust in state government.”

“They were concerned that three years from now the revenue source would go away and towns would have to fund this,” she said about Billerica’s response to the plan.

The motion to enter into the final round of regional-dispatch discussions failed, 3-1, with Selectman Andrew Deslaurier casting the sole vote in favor. Selectman Bob Accomando, who works for the town as a police dispatcher, excused himself from deliberations.

Yesterday, Deslaurier defended his vote, saying the town had little to lose by simply participating in a final round of analysis. Woods said the last round will be a governance study, meaning municipalities will discuss how to transition their existing dispatchers.

“Now we’re out and we’ll get no more reports,” Deslaurier said. “But nothing was final until we signed that bottom line.”

Towns will choose whether to sign after the governance study.

Selectmen Chairman Bob Correnti said yesterday he opposed joining the regionalization agreement because “similar state deals like the Quinn Bill and Circuit Breaker changed down the road.”

Correnti said he was afraid the state Legislature could someday vote to pull the plug on technology funding and other resources.

He also feared the lack of a backup plan, such as the one currently employed between Billerica and Wilmington. If Billerica’s fire and police-dispatch centers somehow fail during an emergency, Wilmington has the ability to provide backup.

Correnti also said Police Chief Dan Rosa, who was at the meeting, expressed concerns about response times being slowed by a regional dispatch system. But Woods said studies conducted by AECOM showed that response times in communities that have switched to regional dispatch either improved or remained the same.

Rosa could not be reached yesterday for comment.

In other news, selectmen voted unanimously to write a letter to Gov. Deval Patrick to express their collective opposition to proposed Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority budget cuts.

Under the proposal, weekday commuter-rail service would end at 10 p.m. while weekend service would be canceled. Bus services from Burlington would also be slashed.

The MBTA is facing a projected deficit of more than $130 million.

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