As of Thursday, Tazewell County and its municipalities have all approved the intergovernmental agreement for the consolidation of its emergency call dispatch centers.
A two-year-old state law requires a county the size of Tazewell to consolidate its four dispatch centers into two. East Peoria City Council and Tazewell County Board were the final bodies to approve the agreement.
East Peoria City Commissioner John Kahl says there’s no question, the consolidation is a big task! "But with this new board that’s going to be created through this agreement now that it’s passed, I’m very confident everyone will work together with the common goal. I mean at the end of the day, no one has a choice. So we need to come together and make this work.”
The call centers in East Peoria, Morton and Washington will consolidate into what will be called TC North, in Morton. TazeComm dispatch in the Pekin Justice Center will be upgraded and continue handling Tazewell County as well as Pekin. It will be called TC South.
The deadline to have the two dispatch call centers operational is July 1, 2019. The new system will be called Tazewell County Consolidated Communications or TC3.
Click hereto link to the Tazewell County Intergovernmental Agreement.