Representatives Jeffrey Roy, Shawn Dooley, along with Senators Richard Ross and Karen Spilka today announced the Regional Dispatch Center for Franklin, Wrentham, Norfolk and Plainville is one of 37 projects slated to receive funding from the $4 million Community Innovation Challenge (CIC) grant program. The program incentivizes and supports regionalization and other cost saving initiatives that will change the way local governments do business to maintain service delivery and stretch every tax payer dollar as far as possible.
The grant provides $20,000 to fund the 4-town GIS Mapping Project to assist with the Regional Dispatch Center established by the Legislature in July of last year. Known as of House No. 2189, the law allows Franklin, Wrentham, Norfolk and Plainville to construct, equip, operate and maintain a consolidated regional public safety communications and dispatch center.
Left to right, Ross, Roy, McCarragher, Dooley
“The CIC Grant is essentially the foundation for the Regional Dispatch Center,” said Franklin Fire Chief Gary McCarraher, who was at the State House on Thursday to collect the grant. “It will create a model for better, faster response times, enhanced efficiency and it will allow towns to share resources across borders.”
"This grant comes on the heels of the passage of the bill establishing a regional dispatch center in our communities, and will supply the necessary mapping technology to make it successful," said Representative Jeffrey Roy (D-Franklin). "Combining the dispatches for all of the towns will improve the response times, save taxpayer dollars, and make the citizens of the region safer. And this grant provides some of the state-of-the-art tools and latest technology that will enhance public safety."
“I am pleased that Franklin’s innovative GIS mapping project is receiving this critical funding. The project is a terrific example of communities collaborating on creative, more efficient ways to provide local services and use information technology effectively,” said Senator Karen Spilka (D-Ashland).
“I am so pleased to see the towns awarded this grant, which will be an important step towards developing the Regional Dispatch Center,” said Senator Richard Ross (R-Wrentham). “This innovative plan will go great lengths toward providing high quality and efficient emergency response in the communities.”
“As a citizen, an on-call firefighter/EMT, and a State Representative of this community, I am extremely proud that we have been awarded the Community Innovation Challenge (CIC) Grant. This will help fund our Regional Public Safety Dispatch Center which will provide enhanced services to our towns, resulting in more rapid emergency response while providing the cost benefit of shared services,” said Representative Shawn Dooley (R-Norfolk)
Photo courtesy of Rep Jeff Roy
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