Public safety includes fire protection, emergency medical services and emergency and disaster response as well as law enforcement. Stark County’s 33 fire departments, 26 law enforcement agencies, 11 private ambulance services, four health departments and four hospitals are all charged with responsibilities during emergency situations.
Currently, the City of Canton and Stark County Sheriff’s Department operate two separate radio systems. The city of Canton and Stark County Sheriff’s Department are building the infrastructure that in the next three to five years will provide an interagency day-to-day primary system that is compatible with the state and federal systems. The system will operate from a central communication hub and will provide for data transfer as well as audio. As a result of coordination and cooperation between Stark County Sheriff’s Department and the City of Canton, in early 2010 all Stark County safety forces will have a communications system linking all the agencies on an emergency basis. This system will also have the capacity to provide day to day communications.
Currently there are two 9-1-1 call centers: one in Canton City and one at the Stark County Public Safety Center. There are 11 dispatching centers that are responsible for dispatching fire, ambulance and police. In some instances the fire and police departments of a single political jurisdiction are dispatched by different dispatch centers. Multiple dispatching centers combined with overlapping jurisdictions have resulted at times in the delay in the dispatch and arrival of safety forces.
The Stark County Council of Governments funded a study in 2007 that recommended the creation of a central dispatch center. In 2009 the proposal was accepted and the Commissioners imposed a 0.5 percent sales tax to pay for the center. The Stark County Council of Governments has created a governance committee for central dispatching. However, the voters of Stark County rejected the sales tax and the proposal is now under review.
Stark County Emergency Management Agency |
