From Closet to Command Center: Piedmont’s New Dispatch Hub

Our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group had a once in forever opportunity last Wednesday. Piedmont Police Chief Frederick Shavies had invited us to come for a tour of the new Piedmont Police dispatch center. This was a first and last chance to see the center because after it goes operational it will be closed to the public. We were not going to miss it. Over 60 of us with at least five K-9 best friends were at the Exedra and Chief Shavies was too.

Before we got started, we were reminded that our annual Holiday pizza lunch together will be at Zachary’s restaurant next Wednesday, December 17^th.

Chief Shavies led us on the short walk to the Police Department in the lower level of the Veterans Memorial Building. Director of Public Works Daniel Gonzales was there, as were Police Commander Brandy Marvin-Morris and Administrative Assistant to the Chief April Fitzgerald.

Our group was too big to walk through the Police Department entry to see the new, sound-proof interview room. However, there was room for everyone, and all our well-behaved K-9 best friends, to go around to the side of the building and squeeze into the new, enlarged dispatch center. We were relieved that Fire Chief Dave Brannigan had another commitment because the room’s capacity was stretched.

First, Chief Shavies and Director Gonzales pointed out the bullet proof window looking out to the PPD lobby. Then they took turns explaining that this project relocates and modernizes the dispatch operations within the existing PPD space. The new center replaced a cramped, closet-sized dispatch room that placed hardships on dispatchers who work 12 hour shifts. It also keeps the City’s 911 service in Piedmont, rather than outsourcing it to Oakland or Berkeley, which was a possibility before the decision to upgrade the center was made.

Renovation of the center was high priority of retired Police Chief Jeremy Bowers and identified by the City Council as the highest and best use for American Rescue Plan Act funding in October 2021. Design work for the project began in 2022, construction started in June 2024, and the center will be put into operation on December 19^th at a total cost of $3.1 million.

This is a significant public safety investment for the city. The new center has state-of-the-art equipment, including improved cell phone location accuracy and real-time, on-screen translation in multiple languages. It is the nerve center for the Piedmont community’s access to public safety services. The center fields over 13,000 calls annually for the Piedmont Police and Fire Departments. The former dispatch space was severely undersized. It worked off a 200 amp electrical panel, which is what many homes have, and was unable to accommodate modern technologies. The space had not been seismically retrofitted so there was a risk to providing continuous operations in a catastrophic event. The new center is now seismically safe and has a secure, independent electrical system and backup generator that can power the entire Veterans Building and ensures uninterrupted 911 services.

The center’s new monitoring system can access images from a variety of sources around the city. It also includes infrastructure upgrades that benefit the entire Police Department. The dispatch center will also support the Fire Department’s fire protection and medical calls services.

Along with the physical space improvements, the City increased dispatch staffing for the first time since 1978. Two new dispatcher positions were added, which was made possible by Piedmont’s March 2024 passage of Measure F. Chief Shavies stated that the workload for dispatch staff has increased significantly over the last decade and will continue to trend upward with the implementation of next generation 911 capabilities. The new dispatch center will leverage technology to increase the capabilities of the City’s Police and Fire Departments’ personnel. Dispatchers will have new call answering equipment that will help them better geolocate calls from cell phones with real-time, on-screen translation capability. Additionally, they will be able to continuously monitor public safety cameras and automated license plate readers (ALPRs) on large, wall-mounted displays, rather than switching between windows on their workstation monitors.

Chief Shavies and Director Gongalez see this new facility as a “public intelligence center.” The dispatch center will receive information that will be converted into intelligence and provide rapid response solutions to community safety issues.

After thanking Chief Shavies and Director Gongalez for the tour we still had time to do some walking. There were some nearby “one block wonder” streets where we could look for Holiday house decorations. But first we went down Magnolia Avenue for another look at the new Community Pool. It looks great, but its opening has been delayed until probably spring because of equipment issues.

Our first one block destination was Carmel Avenue. We walked down Magnolia Avenue, past the Recreation Department that had a very tall skeleton out front. We thought it needed a Santa cap. We went up Hillside Avenue, across Oakland Avenue, and down one block to Carmel. On a 2023 walk of Carmel, architect, urban designer, and Piedmont Post columnist Will Adams had pointed out the front yard of a neighbor’s home with an “Inca quality” stonework wall and drought tolerant landscaping with plants. They are now identified with small signs. Sadly, Will died from a stroke last year and is no longer with us on Wednesday walks.

We came to and went up Blair Avenue a block to Dracena Avenue, another one block street. Ghosts hang in the street’s trees before Halloween, but house decorations were few this Holiday season. We climbed Park Way and noted a mini-forest of large, probably poisonous mushrooms in a car strip that had bloomed with the recent, moist, cold days and we came to our third one-block wonder, Waldo Avenue. This street marks what was once the back of Walter Blair’s 19^th Century house, which fronted on then Vernal, now Highland Avenue. In 1852 Blair was the first European settler in what was to become Piedmont. We went up his namesake Blair Avenue to Highland Avenue for our return past the now quiet police station to the Exedra.