Santa Rosa embarks upon effort to build multi-million dollar consolidated dispatch center

If Santa Rosa County government staff can somehow navigate through controversial negotiations to secure a design contract for a long planned consolidated dispatch center, they will have laid the groundwork for construction of a multi-million dollar state of the art facility.

The county is prepared to negotiate with Architect Design Group-Caldwell in the first step of what has been estimated to be a 30-month process through design and construction.

On July 27 commissioners voted to revisit the way in which they had scored presentations from five companies battling for the right to design and build the dispatch center, and in so doing changed course to select the local Caldwell group over Madison County-based Clemons Rutherford & Associates as first option to negotiate with to do the work.

The board's action didn't sit well with County Commissioner James Calkins or, apparently, Clemons Rutherford. The company has notified the county that it is weighing its legal options. A lawsuit could significantly slow progress toward getting the dispatch center up and running.

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When it does come online, the center will, from a single location, field emergency calls now being routed to the Sheriff's Office, Milton and Gulf Breeze police departments and the County Emergency Operations Center, which presently handles all fire and ambulance calls.

The present dispatch center, on Pine Forest Road in Milton, was built in 1998 and the county's needs have simply outgrown it, according to Santa Rosa County Public Safety Director Tom Lloyd.

Plans for a new facility were originally devised about four years ago, Lloyd said, before he took his current job. At that time it was decided that a consolidated dispatch center would be more efficient and cost effective.

"The goal is to have everybody under one roof working together," he said. "State and national models have shown it to be successful and multiple counties around the state employee it. A lot of things run more efficiently."

A needs assessment conducted on behalf of the county indicated that a building of between 22,000 and 23,000 square feet would best meet the needs of the consolidated dispatch team. Cost estimates range somewhere in the vicinity of $20 million.

"It's going to be the latest and greatest technology and have the structural integrity to withstand major storms and flooding," Lloyd said. "It will also be designed to maximize the comfort of employees. They deal with enough stress in the day-to-day job."

Security precautions will also be a top priority, according to design planners.

Santa Rosa Assistant County Administrator Brad Baker told county commissioners the state has appropriated funding to cover the cost of design work and "is very interested in assisting with funding" for the dispatch center project because it is combining so many existing operations under one roof.

The county is considering two possible locations at which to build the dispatch center. One is adjacent to the EOC building on the same parcel of land. The second is further up Pine Forest Road at its intersection with Old Bagdad Highway where the county has obtained a much larger lot than that occupied by the EOC.

In its presentation to the county on July 13, Architect Design Group-Caldwell informed commissioners that its primary business is the design and construction of public safety facilities.

"Caldwell does only public safety. We are not learning on your dime, I assure you. We are very good at this," one of the several speakers for the company said. "Most architects don't specialize in this project type."

Company officials introduced a local connection in Miller Caldwell, who identified himself to commissioners as a lifetime resident of Santa Rosa County.

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The group said that if a contract is signed it can take the preliminary dispatch center assessment and turn it into a "detailed assessment" within about two months.

"We're looking at this as a 50-year project," a team speaker said, indicating that the building will be designed with future growth in mind.

In its power point presentation, Clemons Rutherford offered site plans for both county parcels that could be used for the dispatch center construction. According to their models, the first site adjacent to the EOC is too small to offer much in the line of space for more than just the new building. The second would require zoning changes and land clearing, but provide enough space for amenities like secured employee parking.

Lloyd said there has been some discussion of absorbing the EOC function into the dispatcher center building.

"We haven't decided on a solid number and how big the building might be," he said. "At the present time the plan is simply to consolidate the dispatch services."

Other than the nuts and bolts and specialized aspects that have been proven to maximize the efficiency of modern dispatch centers, Caldwell Architects also emphasized "psychological aspects" of the dispatch center's needs. Company officials said amenities like exercise rooms and indoor and outdoor break areas had been offered at other public safety facilities.

For the majority of county commissioners, the decision between Architect Design Group-Caldwell and Clemons Rutherford & Associates came down to, as Commissioner Kerry Smith described it, "basically a coin flip." He said he chose Clemons Rutherford as his first choice and Caldwell as his second, but could have easily have reversed the two numbers.

In the end on July 13, three commissioners, Sam Parker, Ray Eddington and Chairman Colten Wright decided on Caldwell as the best selection, with Parker saying the company's local ties had proven a deciding factor for him.

What decided the first vote in favor of Clemons Rutherford was Calkins ranking the Caldwell group at No. 5, or last among competitors. It was a decision that fellow commissioners openly questioned and what led the board to reconsider the manner in which it had voted to rank competing companies.

After Caldwell had completed its July 13 presentation, Calkins asked the company's team what other work it had done in Santa Rosa County. He was told the group had done work for Santa Rosa County Medical Center and the District Medical Examiner's Office, whose general manager, Dan Schebler, had once served as Santa Rosa's county administrator.

Prior to leaving the county job, Schebler came under fire for misspeaking at a public meeting when he said the county had applied for Small County Outreach Program funding. The county, in fact, had missed that deadline and the opportunity to potentially receive SCOP funding for infrastructure.

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Calkins was outspoken in his criticism of Schebler.

At the July 27 meeting at which the decision to switch from Clemons Rutherford to Caldwell was made, Parker told Calkins that he had heard rumblings that Calkins had voted down the Caldwell group bid due to ongoing animosity toward Schebler.

"The fact that you ranked them dead last, No. 5, I'm not going to make innuendos or try to pretend I know your motivations," he told Calkins. "But some people shared with me they thought it was because they learned this firm was working on the Medical Examiner's Office and there was some rub between you and the former administrator."

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Santa Rosa County looks to build consolidated dispatch center in Milton