Someday, either you or someone you know will need help. You might need the assistance of law enforcement, a paramedic or firefighter. You will call one number – 911 – and assume everything will work.

The reality is that our emergency communication system is in desperate need of an overhaul. It doesn’t matter whether you live inside the city limits, in one of our small towns, or in unincorporated Spokane County. Some of the equipment we rely on to assist you in an emergency is 30 years old, and its continued use is no longer an option.

On the May 20 ballot, through Proposition 1, voters will have an opportunity to decide if public safety is a priority. The ballot proposal addresses the following items:

“ Replacing the communication system infrastructure for all our local government agencies, as well as the individual equipment needed by law enforcement and firefighters.

“ Restoring Crime Check to a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week operation.

“ Providing a “reverse emergency communication” capability to enable an appropriate agency to call people’s homes and warn them of an emergency that may require evacuation or some other action necessary for their safety.

Currently, people calling 911 face an increasing likelihood of either getting a busy signal or a recording asking the caller to “please hold.” The length of hold times can seem like a lifetime to the one needing assistance.

This overload of the 911 system can be attributed to a number of factors.

We are a growing region and more people are seeking assistance.

After the Crime Reporting Center has closed for the evening, people are asked to dial 911 for all public safety issues. This places a large strain on the 911 system, creating delays.

The answer is to restore Crime Check to round-the-clock operations. It is important to remember the Crime Check operators were 911 operators. They were able to handle the overflow from 911 during peak calls for 911 services. With Crime Check restored on a 24-hour, seven-days basis, citizens will be able to report a crime without overburdening our 911 system. Crime Check operators will also take cold police reports, freeing up deputies and police officers to respond to in-progress calls and allowing them to be more proactive in preventing crime.

Our next challenge comes when responders get to the scene of the emergency.

There are numerous locations within this region where “dead spots” make it impossible for responders to communicate with dispatch or other units. These “dead spots” are in both the outlying areas and the metropolitan areas of the Spokane region. These areas include schools and a number of business buildings, including those in the downtown area.

Additionally, there are instances where responders within the same department cannot make radio contact with each other. More important, there have been a number of situations where one department could not communicate with another department at the same scene of an incident.

Consider the case a few years ago when Spokane’s SWAT team and the sheriff’s SWAT team were at the same incident. Due to an inability to communicate, when gunfire erupted, the teams did not know where each other were located or who was doing the shooting.

The tragedy in New York during the Sept. 11 attacks was compounded when firefighters and law enforcement could not communicate with one another. This lack of communication resulted in additional loss of life to both citizens and public safety officials.

A similar proposal was presented to citizens last fall and was defeated by a mere 288 votes. We were told by some individuals that they cast their votes the way they did because they did not see the words “Crime Check” in the ballot language, they were interested in a sunset clause and felt that money might be available elsewhere.

This proposal addresses all three. Crime Check is in the ballot language and will be restored. The proposal does sunset at the end of 10 years.

Most importantly, we approached all the jurisdictions to look for ways to fund this system within current revenues. None has the revenues to absorb a project of this magnitude. State law also provides that this funding can be used only for emergency communication and 911 systems.

This is an old problem that others have failed to address. This issue is about the safety of our community and the safety of those who protect us.