Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Northwood’s city council voted to outsource their emergency dispatch service to the Wood County Sheriff’s Office after a packed regular meeting on July 2.
Mayor Ed Schimmel cast the tiebreaking vote in the 4-3 decision. James Barton, Louis Fahrbach and Michael Melnyk voted in favor of the outsourcing, while Dean Edwards, Patrick Huntermark and Mark Stoner voted against it. Council president Randy Kozina abstained, and Schimmel broke the tie.
“My primary purpose here is to represent the taxpayers of Northwood, and I feel like we did the right thing there, saved them money and offered good safety services from the sheriff’s department,” Schimmel said in an interview with WTOL’s Steve Iwanek. “Another part of it is that we feel the sheriff’s services are just stellar services. If I didn’t think they were, I never would have voted in favor of it.”
Residents speak up
Thirteen people spoke during the overflow, standing-room only regular council meeting, including a current dispatcher and the wife of another current dispatcher. The majority spoke out against it, some suggesting alternatives such as putting it on the ballot in the shape of a levy.
Paula Hyder was one of those people.
“This council chose to build a community center that is an expense,” Hyder said. “It’s very nice … the problem is now you want to eliminate a basic safety service that our community has had for decades.”
Schimmel responded.
“I don’t see it that way,” he said. “I think the sheriff’s service is comparable.”
Hyder said Wood County’s dispatchers aren’t familiar with Northwood.
“They don’t know anything about any of us up here,” she said. “They don’t know the streets. There’s two Dowling’s in Wood County. There’s two Joseph streets in Wood County. This is a safety issue.”
Wood County sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn said that the county uses the same GPS as Uber and Lyft, which would help specifically locate people when they call on a cell phone.
That spurred a question from another resident, Carol Albright, who asked on behalf of landline users.
“What happens at one o’clock in the morning and my husband has heart problems?” she said.
“We notify all the providers that at a certain date and time to route the 911 calls from Northwood to us,” Wasylyshyn said. “We did that with Rossford. Same with the voice-over-internet. All those entities are notified that at a certain date and time, that they make that switch. They do it all the time.”
One of the more passionate pleas came from Sharronda Reiner.
“I don’t know if any of you guys have ever had the opportunity to go to a police station and pick up a phone and nobody is there,” she said. “It is the most annoying thing in the whole entire world to stand there and wait for someone to answer that phone and be like, ‘I need a police officer’ and just stand around waiting while there’s nobody there to help you.
“I’ve had the opportunity so many times in Northwood to come straight here to the police station and talk to an actual human.”
Reiner made her statement due to a history of domestic violence.
“I have a baby girl, and I’ve had to come here for custody exchanges because of domestic violence,” she said. “I know that I can come here and be safe because there’s a human in here 24/7. It makes a big deal to have a dispatcher here 24/7, not when the clock ends at five o’clock … I know that when I come here, I’m safe because there’s someone in this building. You all get to clock out and go home to your cushy little houses, but when DV is going on, it never ends. It never ends.”
A wife of one of the dispatchers, who did not state her name, also spoke to Schimmel.
“You said you went down and sat with Wood County’s dispatchers,” she said. “How many times have you sat down with your dispatchers in your own city?
“I don’t know that I have,” Schimmel said.
“Exactly,” she said. “To me, as a citizen, I’m not a citizen of Northwood, but all these citizens (are), (and) it seems like you care more about Wood County than you do your own city.”
It wasn’t all negative against outsourcing the dispatch services, though.
Dan Mikolajczyk was one of those for the switch.
“Everything I’ve read and all the posts, the mayor’s posts online, it sounds like the biggest problem we’re having here is about the dispatchers being laid off,” he said. “And that’s a terrible shame. The dispatchers are professionals here. But we elect these people here to make decisions on our best behalf.
“We’re short of money on taxes coming in. The county is taking money away from us … We recently hired three new firemen with that new grant. How are we going to pay for that at the end of the three years (after the grant expires)?
“I like these people to make the right decision for us. I don’t want to use the old frame, ‘I’m retired, I’m on a limited budget.’ I don’t want a levy. We might eventually have to have one for something here, but let’s save it for when we need it, not just for the dispatchers here.”
Mikolajczyk said his daughter has worked with some of the dispatchers.
“They are great dispatchers,” he said. “I think the sheriff’s people sound like they’re professional, too. I think they’ll deliver what we need at a cheaper price. (Wasylyshyn) is talking about saving three jobs. If we wait and table this, you’ll probably save no jobs. I know it’s a hard decision to make for a lot of people.
“I wouldn’t want to be the dispatcher being laid off, but it happens. I was laid off back in my day. I worked for the city of Toledo. I took my time off. I wasn’t happy about it. I survived.
“Times are tough here now. I don’t think anybody wants to pay more income tax, so I’m in support of this, and I hope you all vote to (have Wood County take it over).”
Council discussion
Once the public got done speaking, Huntermark made a motion to put the issue on the ballot and leave it up to voters.
“Believe me, it isn’t that I don’t think this is the right move,” he said. “But I think it’s everyone else’s choice. Don’t just put it on us. I believe the smart move, the money move for the city (is the oursourcing), because we do have full-time fire to take care of, which is coming.”
Fahrbach countered that.
“Disagree. You do not,” he said. “Proper budgeting. We’ve went through it. That’s just not accurate.”
The motion died for lack of a second.
Cost, savings
Stoner then requested the city’s finance director, Ken Yant, to clear up a few things about the costs and savings of the potential move.
Yant said the city budgeted $529,000 for dispatch this year. Based on union negotiations, they are estimating the actual amount to be $514,328.
In 2027, though, new rules from the state would require that two dispatchers be present 24/7, which would bump the city from five to 10 dispatchers. Yant estimated that would bump them up to $1,018,557.
Those numbers don’t include a potential $250,000 equipment upgrade that would be needed, as well.
The sheriff’s office is proposing a $204,735 annual cost.
Furthermore, Northwood police chief Jeff Zahradnik is requesting that the city go from one to two records clerks if the move was made.
With those two positions included with the sheriff’s office proposal, it would bring the annual projected cost to $298,990.
So, for 2026, the estimated savings would be $215,338 with two records clerks. Once the million-dollar budget projection hits in 2027, the projected savings would be $719,000 annually.
Q/A
Prior to the regular council meeting, Wasylyshyn spoke for nearly an hour about the outsourcing at the committee of the whole meeting, which included a Q and A session.
He said the county already dispatches for Lake Township, Rossford and Walbridge.
“I am not just the sheriff of certain parts of Wood County,” he said. “I am the sheriff of all of Wood County. Northwood being part of Wood County, I am your sheriff and any opportunity I have to provide services to the people of Northwood … I make decisions not based on what’s best for (me). I don’t make decisions on what’s best for the Wood County Sheriff’s Office. I make decisions on what’s best for the citizens of this county.”
Wasylyshyn said the county answers 99.99 percent of 911 calls within 15 seconds, and there’s over 40,000 such calls per year. He said 93 percent of wireless calls are already being answered by Wood County 911 and that residents would still be able to use the non-emergency number to reach Northwood police.
The next city council meeting is slated for Aug. 21 at 7 p.m.
