Will County’s public safety agencies hope to build the second-largest communications center in Illinois – a $43 million command center in Crest Hill that others consider a “huge waste of money.”
The project some thought was dead is still alive and well and was recently presented to Will County officials.
Leading the charge is the county’s Emergency Telephone System Board, which has collected a 75-cent monthly surcharge per land line since 1989 to provide 9-1-1 emergency dispatch services.
While this joint effort is “not on the fast track,” ETSB administrator Steve Figved said the board has taken the first step to make this vision a reality. On Thursday, the board will discuss three appraisals averaging $35,000 per acre to purchase a 20-acre site owned by the Illinois Department of Corrections on Caton Farm Road. The board already spent $1 million on preconstruction design and development costs.
The proposed two-story, 87,000- square-foot facility could house the ETSB and 9-1-1 administrative staff, the Western Will County dispatch center (WESCOM), the Will County Sheriff’s dispatch center, the county coroner’s office, the county Emergency Operations Center and the Emergency Management Agency’s radio system.
The facility is designed to enhance emergency services, ensure uninterrupted operations during an emergency, meet the growth of Will County and reduce the overall costs of providing emergency services, Figved said.
Each agency would pay its “fair share,” he said. ETSB and 9-1-1 would occupy the most space and pay $11.4 million. WESCOM would pay $4.3 million and the five Will County agencies would bear the remaining two-thirds of the cost. County officials now must decide how they want to proceed.
But like any massive project, it is not without opposition.
The Lincoln-Way Communications Center board has always fought plans for a consolidated center and voted last week to oppose this project.
“We are opposed to spending $11 million of our money,” center chairman Don Labriola said.
Two years ago, Labriola, a Mokena village trustee, headed a task force urging the ETSB to give back some of the money it collected from the telephone tax surcharge to fund local dispatch centers. While some money has been returned, Labriola said Mokena, New Lenox and Frankfort still pay about $350,000 each year to operate their center.
“That surcharge is to make sure we can dispatch police and fire calls. It is not to build a building,” he said. The land should be leased from or donated by the state, he said.
“I thought the project was dead, but someone kept it on life support,” Crete Mayor Mike Einhorn said.
Einhorn, who also heads the Eastern Will County Communications Center (EASTCOM), said it is illegal to spend those funds on a building. The $43 million structure is “too extravagant” and “a huge waste of money,” he said. “How does this help people in eastern Will County?”
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services