Seven communities’ police, fire, and ambulance services are now dispatched from an updated telecommunications center in the former Peru police station on Fourth St. Illinois Valley Regional Dispatch Building and Grounds Chairman Doug Bernabei says the $1.5 million remodeling project is the result of a lot of cooperation. Services are handled for Peru, LaSalle, Spring Valley, Oglesby, Utica, Mendota, and Earlville. Politicians and administrators from each community got together.
The ribbon cutting was Wednesday morning, although the dispatchers began working in the redesigned space Tuesday. Four dispatchers used to work in a 100-square foot room in the same building. Bernabei says that was big enough for fewer people when it served only the Peru police station. But there was a lot of uncertainty about the future in 2016.
Up to four dispatchers worked in this room in 2016.
This is where the dispatchers are working now.