If you remember the vintage film “Cool Hand Luke,” you’ll remember the classic line uttered by The Captain: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”
That’s what’s happening with Lake County officials seesawing over the Regional Operations and Communications emergency dispatch facility under construction at the county’s Libertyville campus.
Instead of Strother Martin, the veteran character actor who played The Captain at a Florida prison camp in the 1967 film with Paul Newman as the title character, we have Sheriff John Idleburg and County Board Chair Sandy Hart in the starring roles.
Last summer, both players were on board in support of the expensive and green-certified facility scheduled to open at the end of this year. It is scheduled to become operational by July 2025.
Hart still believes in the $35 million project; Idleburg not so much. Waukegan, too, has withdrawn from what will become a regional headquarters putting emergency dispatchers from municipalities and fire departments across the county under one roof.
In an eight-page letter to Lake County Board members dated Dec. 8, Idleburg spelled out a litany of reasons why the Lake County Sheriff’s Office has plans to pull out of the ROC, the consolidated regional 911 center officials have toiled over for about a decade.
County officials have been mainly quiet over the sheriff’s U-turn regarding the facility under construction on the county land off Winchester Road, west of Milwaukee Avenue. The plan was to replace the sheriff’s dispatch center located off Milwaukee in Libertyville, which dates to 1948.
If you’ve ever dialed 911 in a medical or police emergency, valuable minutes can be lost — and response times delayed — while calls are transferred between first responders. On average, authorities say there are about 85,000 emergency calls annually in Lake County, with 7,000 of those calls requiring mutual aid from surrounding agencies.
Police and fire departments involved in the consolidation effort include Antioch, Fox Lake, Gurnee, Lake Zurich, Libertyville, Mundelein, North Chicago, Park City, Vernon Hills and Zion. The 37,426-square-foot building — officials say it can survive tornadoes and extended power outages — composed of recycled or locally sourced materials is being built on a 21-acre project site with space for 34 dispatcher positions.
At the July 7 groundbreaking, fellow Democrats Hart and Idleburg, joined by Congressman Brad Schneider, D-Deerfield, who snared some federal funds for the building, smiled for cameras while hefting silver shovels and donning hardhats. Then, both heartily praised the project.
Idleburg now says he had concerns about the consolidated center from the beginning, and those concerns have not been addressed by members of the Democrat-controlled County Board or county functionaries. He said there are plenty of unanswered questions arising from the project that have not been resolved to his office’s satisfaction.
Other agencies, so far, seem OK with the operational plans, despite some charges for service estimated to rise accordingly.
“While we are disappointed that the LCSO decided to no longer participate in the consolidation at this time, we continue to work with current and potential partners on this important initiative,” Hart, of Lake Bluff, said in an e-mail. “The ROC will be used to its full potential — to eliminate 911 call transfers in Lake County in a hardened, state-of-the-art facility that will serve our residents for years to come.”
State legislation caused consolidation of smaller dispatch centers and in 2018, 21 Lake County public safety entities began planning for a 911 consolidation system. According to one study, planners estimated savings between $2.3 million and $10.4 million a year. Those cost savings from years ago may have been wishful inflation.
Yet, the plans have not pleased Idleburg, nor his executive leadership team. The sheriff says there are, “too many unanswered questions”.
Sheriff’s officials say they are being asked to agree to something over a five-year span where there is no idea of the actual costs, no idea of how it will operate and have received no answers to Idleburg’s concerns.
“All we know is service would be greatly reduced and costs for us would be drastically more than we pay now,” Sheriff’s Office spokesman Christoper Covelli said in an e-mail. “After our concerns were continually kicked to the wayside, the sheriff said enough. He can no longer move forward, as it will have far too many negatives and far too much risk.”
Despite the sheriff’s stance, Idleburg said in his letter: “I believe dispatch consolidation will be beneficial to the smaller PSAPs (public-safety answering points, i.e., dispatchers), which present agencies with less responsibilities and who provide fewer services.”
The Sheriff’s Office has 22 radio channels its dispatchers monitor and use to communicate; others involved in the project have 20 channels.
For her part, Hart affirms: “The Lake County Board has not changed course and we maintain our steadfast support of a consolidated 911 system for the benefit of Lake County visitors and residents. The consolidation partners, the supporting Emergency Telephone System Board, and Lake County’s Emergency Management Agency will be housed in the new, multi-use Regional Operation Center (ROC).”
In some way, the ROC sounds like a case of form over function. Or, as Covelli said: “It was like trying to force a square peg into a round hole.”
Regardless, officials need to get on the same page and resolve worries from the Sheriff’s Office if it is to be a partner in advancing its public safety mission into the next decade. After all, communication is the key.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
sellenews@gmail.com
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