In addition to handling all the landline and 911 calls that originate within its borders, the City of Ripon also handles the dispatch services for the City of Escalon.
And starting next year, San Joaquin County’s southernmost city will be doing the same for the City of Lathrop – which is putting all of the pieces in place to begin providing its own police protection by the middle of next year.
On Monday, the Lathrop City Council approved an item that will allow city staff to contract with Ripon for dispatch services for a 10-year period that will allow the city to focus on establishing the police department.
The council voted unanimously to approve the contract.
The move will cost Lathrop $245,000 in additional equipment that needs to be purchased and $415,000 to hire dispatchers – which will have a six-month period to be trained prior to the Lathrop Police Department coming online on July 1, 2022.
According to the staff report prepared for the item, the council had previously approved $550,000 for dispatch services in the preliminary budget to start the Lathrop Police Department – requiring an additional $110,000 to meet the $660,000.
The annual cost for dispatch services – to maintain equipment and pay for the dispatchers that Lathrop will require – will be just shy of $1 million.
And all three agencies that use the Ripon Police Department’s Wilma Avenue dispatch facility will benefit from the move.
Lathrop’s investment into new equipment needed to scale the dispatch operation while provide additional resources that neither Ripon nor Escalon could provide individually – meaning that Lathrop is essentially adding more to the communal pot than they would be actually using.
According to the consultant that is helping Lathrop facilitate the transition, Ripon is a perfect candidate for a contract for dispatch services because they already perform those services for the City of Escalon and have done so for 26 years.
Ripon’s dispatch equipment and Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) System are also described as “robust” and can be updated to accept additional services if necessary.
Ripon has long been ahead of the curve when it comes to maintaining computer networks that allow for technologically-advanced policing services – pioneering a Motorola Mesh Wireless Network long before it became commonplace to find those sorts of systems utilized by cities similar in size to Ripon. The city also prioritized camera placements that allowed for officers in the field to view real-time footage from their patrol cars, and the new dispatch center that was expanded when Ripon allowed for the Ripon Police Department to take over the old city hall building includes screens from those wireless cameras that can be monitored by dispatchers.
While Lathrop is shelling out a decent amount of money to get the new department off the ground, the city feels that the initial startup costs will be paid back over the years when compared to the cost that they were paying the County of San Joaquin for contracted policing services over the span of more than three decades.
The combination of high retirement costs and officer startup costs, Lathrop claims, has made it unfeasible to continue contracting for policing services – especially when massive developments have kept the city coffers full.
Given Lathrop’s prime financial position – it was ranked one of the most fiscally-healthy cities in the entire State of California – and the fact that the city had worked out an agreement with River Islands to build a police station in a location that will make it geographically centered once development continues in the area, the decision to branch out and achieve a longstanding goal made sense, according to the council at the time the decision was made.
To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.
