Getting Answers: Southwick moving to regional dispatch center

SOUTHWICK , MA (WGGB/WSHM) - Starting Thursday, Southwick Police dispatch will have a new home in the neighboring community of Westfield.

“We’ve been working toward this for months now, so we have a well laid plan. We have everyone available if we need them, so I don’t expect any hiccups whatsoever,” said Nina Barszcz, dispatch administrator for Westfield Regional Public Safety.

Barszcz is preparing for the launch of a new regional dispatch center for Westfield and Southwick located in Westfield.

“They were looking for a home for their dispatch center and they had asked Westfield…Staffing seems to be an issue especially nowadays and this is kind of the wave of the future,” Barszcz explained.

After years of talks, the regional dispatch center is officially set to launch on Apremont Way on Thursday.

“We had state grant funding for over $1 million last year and then this year was about $300,000,” Barszcz added.

Barszcz told Western Mass News that Southwick will now call the existing Westfield dispatch center home, part of a new statewide effort to regionalize, so we wanted to know how this new system will affect Southwick residents when they’re in need.

“They’re not going to see any difference. If anything, they’re gonna see a quicker response time for mutual aid,” Barszcz said.

They’ll have three people on duty from 8 a.m. to midnight and will constantly re-evaluate based on call volume.

“We actually only hired one additional full-time employee, so right now, we are at a two-person minimum,” Barszcz explained.

Last minute preparations include updating the computer aided dispatch system to include Westfield and Southwick cruisers and rerouting closed-circuit televisions from the Southwick police and fire departments.

“Even though we might not have that up and running exactly for tomorrow, we are working on laptops in order to keep documentation open for southwick,” Barszcz noted.

What about the potential inclusion of other smaller communities moving forward?

“There’s a benefit for regionalization. There definitely is more talks generalized about regionalizing with other smaller communities,” Barszcz said.

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