Questions remain about Ocala-county emergency communications improvements
File photo: Ocala Police Chief Mike Balken, left, and Michelle Stone of the Marion County Commission, right, on Tuesday, February 25, 2025. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2025.
Months after Ocala officials say the city had implemented improvements to its computer interface to link its emergency response center with Marion County’s call center to automatically share all calls, not all calls are being shared, and the changes were so minor that county counterparts did not know it had occurred.
The improvement was intended to speed up communications between the Marion County Sheriff’s Office and Marion County Fire Rescue and Ocala Police Department and Ocala Fire and Rescue. Until the change, dispatchers had to share vital information one call at a time, potentially slowing the critical response time and inserting opportunities for human error.
The “Gazette” has reported for almost a year on glitches in the city’s 911 dispatch system and on city officials’ refusal to use the same CAD system as the Marion County Communications Center. The city deconsolidated its fire dispatch from the county in 2019, placing the city’s fire dispatch instead with the Ocala Police Department. At the time, then-OPD Chief Greg Grahm, Ocala Fire Rescue Chief Shane Alexander, as well as Marion County Fire Chief James Banta and Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods, empathically told the city council that the only way the deconsolidated dispatch would work was if they all used the same CAD.
Five years later, they still work from disparate CAD systems.
That understanding was echoed by Marciano during a November 2024 meeting.
In January, the “Gazette” followed up with the county’s 911 center Director Lisa Cahill, to see how the improved interface between the two CAD systems was working. Cahill said she was unaware of any changes to the CAD2CAD interfaces between Ocala and the county.
An hour later, after checking with Ocala’s 911 Director Sherri Grunland, Cahill emailed the Gazette to say that Grunlund confirmed that the city has revised its CAD interface with the county.
That change, however, was never communicated to Marion County officials on the other end of that critical help line.
When asked about the apparent miscommunication, Balken indicated that the “Gazette” was unfairly focused on the city’s 911 service and should turn a critical eye on the county’s system.
Asked to give an example of an error, he replied, “I’m not going to do your job for you.”
The “Gazette” requested all emails between OPD and the county to determine if there was any communication regarding the improved interface of the CAD or testing for it in 2024. Also, we looked for any mentions of operational errors at the county call center.
The city responded to this public records request with an invoice for more than $44,000. When the request was narrowed down to emails between the city’s 911 director and anyone in the county for the same period, we received a reduced records bill of $22,000 to review and redact 2,619 emails, from OPD’s records department Supervisor Heather Hedges.
The “Gazette” made the same public records request to Marion County and was provided the thousands of emails without charge.
Our review of the emails found no mention of the new, improved interface between the county and city.
In a follow-up email, Balken provided the following timeline of events:
“On Aug. 1, 2024, members of our department met to discuss the possibility of augmenting our CAD capabilities in an effort to automate the sharing of calls with Marion County Public Safety. Our CAD vendor accepted our change request and worked to adjust the software to more efficiently share call information. That adjustment was made, necessary testing was completed, and the change went live on Aug. 5, 2024.”
The four-day turnaround period is at odds with Balken’s earlier statement that the city and county staff had had many meetings discussing the matter.
Balken also clarified what change has been implemented.
Rather than every city 911 call automatically being shared with the county, the CAD2CAD interface update allowed city call takers and dispatchers to share calls without pressing as many buttons.
The system, however, determines if the call demands a response by MCFR or the MCSO before sharing the call.
In a Jan. 17 email to the “Gazette,” Cahill said she confirmed with OPD “they have implemented a new auto-send feature which allows the CAD to determine (with pre-determined parameters) if a call needs to be sent to Public Safety via cad2cad.”
But she noted, “We are still only able to see a call if we take the call or it is sent to us via CAD2CAD, whether automatically or manually.”
The status of cooperation between these vital public safety agencies continues to be murky, primarily due to the city’s lack of communication or transparency about its operations.
In November, the Marion County Director of 911 Management asked Grunlund to answer a questionnaire about 911 operations for the state’s Emergency Communications Board, the city’s response was that their CAD system was installed in 2007 and was last updated in January 2024. There was no mention of the August 2024 CAD interface change.
The questionnaire asked if the city was considering changing its CAD. Ocala’s response was “No.”
Prior reporting: Marion County continues to get bad health grades. But who is at the helm to fix? | Ocala Gazette
Siloed agencies pose unnecessary challenges to improving public safety levels | Ocala Gazette
Can emergency personnel locate me through my cellphone? | Ocala Gazette
Providing quality observations to the community takes a lot of time and work | Ocala Gazette
The “first” of the first responders | Ocala Gazette
City of Ocala emergency dispatch continues to struggle | Ocala Gazette
Fatal crash leaves questions about City emergency communications | Ocala Gazette
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