On his last official week of work, Polson City Manager Ed Meece brought his honesty and frustration to the Lake County Commissioners over the lack of a contract for the new dispatch software, citing that it has been more than six months and that he has asked “several times.”  

During the most recent joint city-county meeting on May 12, the City of Polson and the county discussed the newly purchased dispatch software, for which participating jurisdictions were asked to provide additional funding. Both governments started officially using this new software at the end of March.  

Meece estimates this is an annual $8,000 cost for the city, and the verbal contract includes the expectation that this amount will increase with the cost of living.  

Meece said he asked the county to draft a memorandum of understanding six months ago. After months without a contract, he explained that he drafted one but has yet to hear back from the civil attorney’s office.  

“I'm going to be honest with you, I'm more than put out on this,” Meece said to the commissioners. “There's really no reason that we can't have, by this point, some type of a response from the county.”  

Meece explained that he submitted a draft MOU to the county two weeks before the April monthly meeting and was awaiting civil attorney James Raymond's suggested modifications. Raymond said during the meeting that he is still waiting for guidance from his supervisor.  

Commissioner Bill Barron said he believed the lack of a contract stemmed from an operational issue with dispatch calls. Meece confirmed there are operational issues, but he believes they can be worked out once the contract is signed.  

Meece explained that this is a new relationship with a new piece of software that must be defined by contract, and that after a couple of years, issues can arise under a verbal contract, as he has witnessed in his past positions.  

“This is not a threat, but you can't ask us to continue to just send checks when we don't have a contract, to know what we're supposed to receive and what the expectations are around the arrangement,” Meece said.  

Meece said the simplest way to avoid conflict from changing expectations is to put this relationship in a written contract. He said this has been really frustrating because at the last monthly meeting, Raymond said he would have written comments for this meeting, but none were provided.  

“I was told by James [Raymond] that we would have written comments by this meeting. If [Raymond] doesn't have direction from his supervisor, then it's on [Raymond] and his supervisor to have that conversation and make it happen, because we have two executive bodies here waiting for it to happen,” Meece said.  

“This is not personal, but it’s really, really frustrating,” Meece added.  

Commissioner Gale Decker asked whether the privacy of dispatch information was part of the reason there wasn’t a contract. Meece said that those items could either be included or not included in the MOU. 

But he added that until they receive a contract that says certain items are privacy matters, they don’t know, and it can’t be discussed until that is brought forward. Decker said all those guidelines should be in the MOU, and Meece said he believes the draft he sent over included those items already.  

“If there's concerns, fine, let's get those concerns in writing … and let's talk about them, and let's find some resolution,” Meece said. “But until that happens, we're just sitting here having the same conversation month after month.”  

Barron said they would schedule a meeting with Raymond next week and apologized to Meece because he thought the privacy disclosure was the issue. Meece added that there are some issues he believes are being sorted out, and asked the city's fire chief, Kevin Straub, to comment on them.  

Polson Fire has software issues too 

Straub said there are four different organizations and agencies trying to talk with each other, and they are hitting “little roadblocks.” He explained in a later interview with the Leader that one software is for the county, and the city has a separate one as well, but the two work together in some capacities. 

This means that when issues arise with either software, there are multiple channels of communication that have to be reached to resolve the problem. Straub said the software works, but not to its full potential, which they want to receive since they are paying for the service.  

Mark Clary, the Lake County’s emergency manager coordinator, explained in an interview with the Leader that the previous system did not require participating jurisdictions to pay for the software. But they needed to upgrade it to meet everyone's needs, and the various agencies agreed.  

Clary said various agencies pay different amounts for the software based on each department‘s call volume. The county is spending about $90,000 a year on the software, not including the contributions from the smaller local fire and police departments.  

Straub said during the joint meeting that he had contacted Clary about an issue with run cards — a service that pre-determines the type of emergency vehicle responding and the number of personnel — and he received a generic answer about the status of the issue.  

Straub explained that he also asked Clary for the county’s Standard Operating Procedure and Standard Operating Guide and was told that they were not “privy to us.” Straub said he wanted this information to match or mimic the way they operate.  

Meece said that if it helps Clary, the city could submit an open records request, because he’s not sure there's an exclusion under the state statute that would remove an operating guide from open records. Meece added that they can provide a copy of the state statute to Clary, or either of the county’s attorneys can.   

Raymond responded, saying, “First I’ve heard of it.”  

Clary explained to the Leader that the documents Straub requested are policies and procedures for the dispatch center and are distributed as employee handbooks, not generally to the “general public.” Clary added that he believes Straub is requesting these documents because he’s wanting to “change the way we do business.”  

He added that changes to the system would have to go through the county commissioners, and this system incorporates all fire departments across the county.  

Meece says meetings benefit both governments 

After the meeting discussing both this issue and the issue of 13th Avenue, Meece said that, although it wasn’t necessarily reflected in this meeting, he has appreciated the opportunity to work with the county commissioners over the past five years. Meece served his last day as city manager on Friday, May 15.  

“We obviously haven't agreed on everything, and sometimes we've disagreed passionately,” Meece said. “I don't take that personally. The fact that we've spent as much time as we have talking and learning from each other over the past five years, I think that's beneficial to both our governments.”  

Barron said his comments closely echo Meece’s, and even when the administration had issues, he said the county and city employees still worked together in the field.