CCSO ends AVL deal with GeoComm

At a meeting Tuesday with Callaway County Sheriff's Office and Ambulance District officials, the county commissioners and GeoComm representatives, Sheriff Dennis Crane cut ties with the company hired to develop mapping and vehicle tracking software for the EOC. Server problems and cellular reception in unincorporated areas in the county have attributed to major service problems throughout the nearly two years the project has been underway.
At a meeting Tuesday with Callaway County Sheriff's Office and Ambulance District officials, the county commissioners and GeoComm representatives, Sheriff Dennis Crane cut ties with the company hired to develop mapping and vehicle tracking software for the EOC. Server problems and cellular reception in unincorporated areas in the county have attributed to major service problems throughout the nearly two years the project has been underway.

Citing nearly two years of unsuccessful attempts at getting the county's emergency response Automated Vehicle Location (AVL) system fully functioning, Callaway County Sheriff Dennis Crane said his office was done with its deal with GeoComm at a meeting with GeoComm and county officials in the Callaway County Ambulance District Tuesday.

"I understand you guys (Geocomm) are still working on it, but it was sold to work," Crane said at the meeting, which included the county commissioners and Ambulance District Director Charlie Anderson. "History repeats itself. I understand in theory; I wanted it to work, but history is not showing me that."

The company was hired by the county commissioners to install the Geographic Information Services (GIS) mapping system at the county's Emergency Operations Center, which would track and log the exact location of incoming 911 calls. The sheriff's office and the ambulance bought in when they were able to add AVL functionality, enabling EOC operators and other officials to track the location and speed of patrol cars and ambulances and provide real-time routes to response locations.

At least in theory. Since the beginning, the project has been plagued by problems and delays: Issues with dropped cellular reception have caused vehicles to drop off or be frozen on the map, while problems with the designated map server in much of the past month have prevented calls from logging on the map system properly.

"We've been at this thing for one and a half, two years, when it was sold to us it was supposed to work at the time of launch," said Crane. "We're two years out and it's still not up to par."

To help the tornado-stricken people of Dumas and surroundings, donations can be made to the Delta Area Disaster Relief Fund, care of the Delta Area Community Foundation, P.O. Box 894, Dumas, AR, 71639, or through the Arkansas Community Foundation, 700 S. Rock St., Little Rock, AR, 72202.