The Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) has announced that the Combined Regional Communications Authority (CRCA) that local governments in Fremont County formed to consolidate dispatch operations has been awarded an Energy and Mineral Impact Assistance grant in the amount of $830,045. The announcement was made by DOLA’s Executive Director Reeves Brown who indicated that the new public safety dispatch center was awarded the full amount of grant funding requested by the CRCA governing board.
Cañon City District Fire Chief Dave DelVecchio, the Chairman of the CRCA Board, said the $830,045 grant represents half of the cost of budget to develop the center with the other 50 percent coming from a cash match put together by the local entities. The entities which make up the Communications Authority are the Fremont County E 9-1-1 Board, the City of Florence, the City of Cañon City, the Cañon City Fire Protection District, and Fremont County.
DelVecchio said the grant award puts CRCA in the best possible position to now accomplish the project with the primary goal to increase the level of public safety across Fremont County. He said a single combined communications center will allow the agencies to implement the latest technology to assure quicker and more reliable response times to medical, fire, and law enforcement emergencies.
DelVecchio said the target date for getting the center operational on the 4th floor of the Fremont County Judicial Center is the spring of 2015. He said architectural design and bid packages should be ready in early October with a 14-16 week construction period taking place later this fall.
DelVecchio said that some of the partners in the dispatch center will see operational costs decrease and others will see their costs increase but the primary beneficiaries will remain the citizens of Fremont County through the heightened emphasis on public safety and the safety of emergency responders.
Chief DelVecchio, Fremont County Sheriff Jim Beicker, and Fremont County Commissioner Ed Norden traveled to Durango on July 22nd to make a presentation to DOLA’s Energy and Mineral Impact Assistance Advisory Committee in support of the grant application. The $830,045 grant award comes from Colorado’s severance tax and mineral lease revenues.