The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly enacted an ordinance that would amend borough code related to the Emergency Services Communications Center Advisory Board and reactivating it. The advisory board has been inactive for several years and, recently, as part of a 2021 restructuring of Borough operations related to the Borough’s Soldotna Public Safety Communications Center, a request was made to reactivate it.
Additionally, there were proposed amendments to establish the size of the board, the membership makeup of the board, the board’s scope, the autonomy of interagency members to make board appointments, and quorum.
Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce said:
“That’s what you’re doing here. You’re reactivating and there’s been a request by the stakeholders in the 911 Dispatch Center, those users of that service have requested that we reactivate the advisory board. It’s been inactive for a number of years and this ordinance would allow us to reactivate it.”
The restructuring of the Soldotna Public Safety Communications Center was made in response to changes initiated by the state of Alaska. The end result was that the center, which historically had been staffed by both borough and state employees, changed to borough employees only. The other government agency and volunteer EMS users of the communications center services entered into dispatch services agreements. As part of that process, a request was made to reactivate the advisory board.
As part of the restart of the Emergency Services Communications Center Advisory Board, the 911 Emergency Communications Coordinator will run the first meeting and there the advisory board will elect a chair and vice-chair, adopt a meeting schedule to include meeting time, location, and a meeting format.
The notice of board meetings will be published on the Borough’s website.
Click here for detailed information regarding the aforementioned amendments to borough code.