News

By Tim O’Meilia
    
The Manalapan Town Commission’s thoughts of farming out its police dispatch services has drawn interest from three local police departments.
    Representatives of neighboring towns Lantana and Ocean Ridge and nearby Delray Beach all attended a Nov. 15 meeting to hear details about a request for proposal issued by the town.
    The proposal seeks bids on two levels of service: to exclusively handle 911 police dispatch calls and related recordkeeping, or to handle both emergency and non-emergency police-related phone calls and records.
    Fire and emergency medical calls from Manalapan will continue to be handled by Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue, which operates from the town fire station adjoining the Town Hall.
    Two years ago, the commission rejected bids to outsource police dispatching, but the issue was revived during town budget discussions this summer.
    The town spends more than $200,000 annually for three full-time and four part-time dispatchers, who field a handful of 911 calls monthly but more than 400 non-emergency calls.
    Neighboring South Palm Beach pays Lantana police $54,600 annually to handle both emergency and non-emergency calls, a contract Manalapan once held but lost to a lower bid by Lantana a few years ago.
    During a Nov. 13 commission meeting, Police Chief Carmen Mattox said the town would lose its license-tag-reading camera system at the Point Manalapan gatehouse where the dispatchers are stationed. With no dispatchers at the gatehouse, there would be no one to oversee the tag reading. A secondary alarm system, which notifies police immediately when residential alarms are set off, would be lost as well.  
    Mattox said he is looking for other alternatives to salvage the camera system, which photographs the license plate of every vehicle passing through  the gate.
    “The people who live on the point are not going to feel that police presence, something that really should be considered,” Commissioner John Murphy said.
    Town Manager Linda Stumpf said the gatehouse could be made a substation where the officer assigned to patrol the point stops to do his paperwork.
    Bids for the dispatch service were scheduled to be opened Nov. 28 and discussed at the Dec. 14 commission meeting.
    The dispatchers would be laid off if the town accepts an outside proposal, but Lantana and Ocean Ridge police chiefs said they may be able to hire some of those laid off.
    Lantana Police Chief Sean Scheller said city officials there are “looking to expand our dispatch services” and suggested they might be able to absorb two of the dispatchers from Manalapan.
    Lantana could benefit from taking over Manalapan dispatch since the communities share the north and south end of Hypoluxo Island.
    Ocean Ridge has one dispatch vacancy, and Police Chief Chris Yannuzzi said that he was relieved to see there might be qualified candidates with local knowledge who might be available.
    Ocean Ridge town commissioners recently voted to not pursue a proposal from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office to take over their police coverage. Adding dispatch service for Manalapan would provide income for the police budget and would allow more use from the dispatch department.
    Delray Beach currently provides police dispatch service to Gulf Stream, a community with similar policing needs that accepts 911 emergency and non-emergency calls but does not accept calls for traditional town-related services.            
    
Jerry Lower contributed to this story.