5 listed as finalists for 911 director|[11/29/07]

Published 12:00 am Thursday, November 29, 2007

The interim director is among five finalists to be the next director of the Warren County E-911 Dispatch Center.

Five of the seven commissioners who manage the city-county agency met Wednesday to discuss the vacancy that has existed since Geoffrey Greetham was fired June 18.

Twenty-one people applied for the job before the Oct. 26 deadline and the list was narrowed at a Nov. 14 meeting. Interviews with the five, none identified except Gaul, will be Dec. 19, the same day as the commission’s next scheduled meeting.

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“I’m hoping we have this entire process completed by the end of they year,” said David McDonald, member and Warren County District 1 Supervisor. He also said the commission has been pleased with Gaul’s performance. “Overall he has really done a pretty good job and he’s continued to improve, especially during the last couple months,” McDonald said.

Responsibilities of the director include overseeing the dispatch center’s budget, which has been as high as $1.8 million annually, training its employees and developing and implementing policies. McDonald said a salary for the new director had not yet been determined. Greetham’s salary was $45,000.

Greetham, a retired Army major, was chosen from more than 70 applicants for the post in March 2005 to take over an operation then beset by personnel and morale problems. For five months in 2006, Greetham also served as interim director of the Warren County Emergency Management Agency as supervisors sought, briefly, to consolidate the function of hazard mitigation and emergency dispatch.

The decision to fire Greetham has the agency seeking its third director in less than three years. Keith Rogers, Vicksburg Fire Chief and commission chairman, did not go into detail of why Greetham was fired, saying only that “he didn’t meet the expectations of the commission.”

After his firing, Greetham attributed at least some of the reason for his departure to difficulties flowing from attempts to move equipment and operations into a new location. The still-pending move comes after years of operating in a former break room at the Warren County Jail and since then in a basement room under the steps of the Warren County Courthouse. In a bid to improve those conditions and upgrade equipment for dispatchers, the Warren County Board of Supervisors purchased from the City of Vicksburg the former Southern Printing building at Clay and First North streets for $230,000 in March 2006.

Progress on the new dispatch center was also discussed by the commission Wednesday. During the meeting, Gaul reported that a foreman with Myrant and Associates, the company that was awarded the contract for adapting the building in October, said that work was a ahead of schedule. The project, which Gaul said consisted mostly of electrical work, was originally expected to be complete in 220 business days.

“Now it’s looking like the dispatch center will be moving locations in late winter or early fall,” Gaul said.

According to Gaul, Myrant and Associates’ bid of $409,000 for the project was about $100,000 more than architects had predicted.

Also discussed at the meeting was a problem that Warren County Address Coordinator Kenny Staggs, Jr. said has “caused delay in emergency response” for a rural area in the county. Staggs proposed to the commission that the lots in the Pineywood Mobile Home Park off of Oak Ridge Road be renumbered and its two unlabeled drives be given names.

The panel approved the proposal, agreeing with naming the park’s main east-west path Pineywoods Drive, and the small drive running south off of that road be named Nebula Drive. The Warren County Board of Supervisors must approve the proposal before further steps are taken.

Also attending Wednesday were Warren County Fire Coordinator Kelly Worthy, Vicksburg Mayor Laurence Leyens, Warren County Emergency Management Director Gwen Coleman and Vicksburg Police Chief Tommy Moffett. Absent were Rogers and Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace.

The dispatch center, which answers all 911 calls in the county, is funded by fees on phone bills and supplements from city and county general funds.