[1/7/05] Warren County delegates to the 911 Commission tried to keep the lid on and to keep city delegates in the dark about an October incident at the 911 Dispatch Center, and that fed problems rather than curing them, according to the center’s interim director and others.

“It’s not OK,” said Peggy Wright, who now supervises the emergency call center in the courthouse basement. “It may never be OK.”

District 1 Supervisor David McDonald, the supervisors’ delegate to the city-county commission that manages the center, said Thursday he believes matters were addressed rather than ignored.

“The dispatchers think it’s a great big coverup over here, but I didn’t know anything about it,” McDonald said. “We had heard there were some problems over at 911, but that Allen was taking care of it.”

“Allen” is Allen Maxwell, former director who voluntarily resigned in November. Memos and grievances filed by center staff indicate there was a verbal and physical confrontation on Oct. 4 between Maxwell and Wright.

The correspondence says the incident was reported to Warren County Volunteer Fire Coordinator Kelly Worthy, then chairman of the commission, but his response was delayed and later clouded by efforts to keep Vicksburg officials Mayor Laurence Leyens, Police Chief Tommy Moffett and Fire Chief Keith Rogers from hearing about the matter.

The memos say the 24-hour center, which directs responses to all 911 calls, nearly fell apart due to the lack of response.

Commission slots are set by the statute that created the center in 1989. In addition to Leyens, Moffett and Rogers as city delegates and Worthy and McDonald as county delegates, members are Martin Pace, as sheriff, and L.W. “Bump” Callaway, as Warren County emergency management director.

Worthy remains on the commission, but stepped down as chairman. Also, three dispatchers have quit and another was fired since October. The $800,000 operation is funded by fees on phone bills and supplements from city and county treasuries.

McDonald said he knew problems still existed last month when he told the rest of the board that everything was OK. When he was quoted in The Vicksburg Post saying problems had been resolved, it was an insult to center staff, the memos say.

Wright said at least two supervisors already knew about the ongoing problems, but weren’t interested in a solution.

“It’s like they want to sweep the whole thing under the rug like nothing ever happened, but it did happen,” she said.

McDonald said Thursday he didn’t find out about the problems until November and had believed that Maxwell’s resignation on Nov. 3 would have resolved much of the matter. He also said the board never heard Maxwell’s version of events.

Dispatcher Lisa Buchanan said it was not until Vicksburg delegates to the commission were informed that dispatchers’ problems started being taken seriously. In a memo now available to the commission, Buchanan says she was approached by Callaway and advised not to tell any of the other commission members about what had happened.

“How can we ever trust them again?” Buchanan asked.

Callaway said his intention was only to ask Buchanan not to discuss matters with people who had not received memos. He said when he made the request to Buchanan, he believed all members of the commission had received the memos.

“I’m disturbed that it’s being discussed in public before the commission even gets a chance to discuss it,” Callaway said this morning.

Buchanan also said she went to McDonald on Dec. 9 to ask why he had told supervisors that everything was fine in the dispatch center. She said he told her his statement was to keep the public from knowing and because, “If you have a pot of (expletive) and you stir it, it only stinks more.”

McDonald said Thursday he didn’t want to address the topic in the public supervisors meeting because it centered on personnel issues discussed during an executive session of the 911 Commission. He also said he didn’t think there was anything left to discuss.

“As far as I’m concerned it’s resolved and it’s time to move on. The last thing we need is for the public to start to be afraid to call 911 because of problems there,” McDonald said.

While the commission has authority over the 14 dispatch center employees, commission members have no authority over each other.

District 4 Supervisor Carl Flanders, whose motion at the Dec. 6 supervisors’ meeting to go into executive session was defeated 3-2, said he has attempted to get board members to talk, but has been rebuffed. “I think there has been an effort not to address this in an effective manner,” Flanders said.

District 2 Supervisor Michael Mayfield, who voted along with McDonald and District 5 Supervisor Richard George against taking up the 911 Commission during a closed session, said Thursday he now believes supervisors need to do something.

“We are definitely going to have to have some very serious discussions,” Mayfield said. “This should have been dealt with a lot more vigorously and lot more swiftly.”

Rogers, who replaced Worthy as chairman of the commission, said he submitted the complaints involving commissioners to the Board of Supervisors because it is up to them how to proceed.

“My point of view is that you’ve got to do the right thing,” Rogers said. “You’ve got a situation and you need to address it.” He also said he may go before supervisors on Jan. 18 to ask them to become involved.

McDonald said supervisors will discuss the issues raised about the 911 Commission, but said the commission should make a recommendation about any action to take. He also said that while Worthy may have made a mistake by trusting the former center director too much, but it wasn’t intentional.

“Kelly definitely did something wrong, there’s no doubt about it, but I don’t think he did anything malicious. He just made a mistake,” McDonald said. Worthy “did not bring to the commission the problem” that was ongoing, McDonald said. The mistake was “a mistake in judgment” and “no coverup was intended on anybody’s part.”