To the Editor:

On Thursday July 24th of 2025, an email was sent out to the Wester City Police Departments dispatchers (5 employees) that over the last 6 months, unbeknown to them, that City and County officials had been working together to develop a merger of dispatch services within the community and as a result of the “collaboration,” the Webster City Police Department’s dispatch center will close and all dispatch responsibilities will be transferred to the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office.

Supposedly this process required a great deal of thought, research and discussion but when I spoke on Friday July 25th of 2025 at a special “joint” meeting between the City Council and Board of Supervisors, their replies were nothing more than “it was just time to do this.”

I personally reached out to Webster City’s City Manager John Harrenstein to ask questions on why this action was moving so quickly. My initial concern which resulted in my very first question was “is this due to budgetary issues” in which Mr. Herrenstein immediately answered “NO.” Ironically when I brought this up at the meeting this past Friday, Mr. Herrenstein acted and postured as if I was fabricating his response, well I have the recording to prove otherwise. He immediately directed me to speak to Administrative Services Director Beth Chelesvig and if she could not answer any of my questions, to reach back out to him for further comment. I respectfully informed Mr. Harrenstein that that made absolutely no sense whatsoever and that I “didn’t want the labor pains, just the baby” as the employees deserved better than that. He ended our conversation shortly after.

I was able to speak to Ms. Chelesvig an hour or so later which really resulted in an empty promise that she would get answers for my questions and get back to me, but she did point out that this is happening all over the state. In fact, she repeated this statement several times as to assure that it was okay to do this. Ms. Chelesvig also explained that she has worked for the city for roughly 30 years now and this has been attempted numerous times, but failed. Maybe there is a reason for why it has failed for over 30 years of attempts. Does the phrase “don’t fix it if it’s not broke” mean anything to these people?

The Council claims that this has been in discussions for months, but Ms. Chelesvig said that this decision was made on the night of Wednesday July 23rd of 2025. Then voted on at 2 p.m. on Friday July 25th of 2025. The notification for said meeting was sent out roughly 12 hours prior, so on or around 2 a.m. (Editor: The notice was sent to the Daily Freeman-Journal Thursday, July 24, at 1:34 p.m.)

This Union was informed that the last attempt to merge the departments occurred roughly 3-4 years ago, which failed. Ironically it was said by a Council member “on record” that this issue won’t be addressed for another 10 years. I’m not the best at math, but I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been 10 years.

Sometime late last year, the city reached out to a consulting firm that interviewed the employees who all agreed that there was a huge lack of communication “within the Webster City Police Department” and no concerns with the process of how they (the staff) do their jobs, but this outside consultant claims that the dispatch systems that the city and county use are “redundant.” (Editor: The departmental audit came in the wake of the departure of former Police Chief Shiloh Mork.)

Redundancy in emergency services often means lives being saved. Having multiple channels and local dispatchers who know your neighborhoods, roads, and residents is not a flaw but a critical safeguard.

Local dispatchers often recognize voices, know frequent callers, and can quickly pinpoint locations that an outside dispatcher may misinterpret, especially in rural and small-town contexts.

Consolidation might be “sold” as “efficiency,” but at what cost? Reduced local control over emergency response, longer response times if dispatchers are overwhelmed, loss of accountability making it harder for residents to address issues if they were to arise.

Consolidating dispatch services is not a minor administrative tweak. It is a fundamental change to public safety in Webster City and Hamilton County. These communities deserve to be heard and to see real evidence that this proposal will improve emergency responses, not undermine it in the name of “efficiency.”

In closing, this situation is nothing more than a disservice to the tax payers of Webster City and Hamilton County. This is not, I repeat, not an issue concerning city or county budgets. This has been attempted numerous times over the last 30 years and has failed. Now, based on the statements from the Webster City Council and Hamilton County Board of Supervisors that “it’s just time” to do this, 5 people are going to lose their jobs and the residents of Webster City are going to lose a service that has not been broken, but for some reason needs to be fixed.

Todd Copley

President

AFSCME Council 61