Roughly 700 days after the first movement toward a Consolidated Dispatch Center, the Bayside Village Board stood in the new entry way for the official ribbon cutting ceremony. 

Robb DeGraff, Sam Dickman, Bill Hersch, Eido Walny, Michael Barth and James Petersen were all in attendance, along with members of both the village hall and police departments. 

The new center supports dispatching services for all seven North Shore communities including Bayside, Brown Deer, Fox Point, River Hills, Glendale, Shorewood, and Whitefish Bay. 

The Public Policy Forum awarded the North Shore Consolidated Dispatch Services with their "Intergovernmental Cooperation" award for the work it took to negotiate and come to agreement with all seven communities. But the center doesn't just dispatch for police services, it also dispatches for the North Shore Fire Department. 

"Previously, phone calls were handled by four separate dispatch centers, so a call to the Brown Deer,  Bayside Center or a wireless call to the Sheriff for the fire department or an ambulance needed to be transferred to the center in Whitefish Bay who dispatched for us," said NSFD Chief Robert Whitaker. "There is an inherent delay in call transfers since the information on the call is being gathered twice. Now, information is gathered once and dispatched. In the end, this results in a faster emergency response.” 

You can find photos and more information about the new dispatch facility here.