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SUNNY Temp: 77 °F Wind: WNW at 6 mph Thursday, July 24, 2003 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine W3 Magazine Jobs @ Mail Tribune Tempo A & E Oregon CarZone Wellness Connection Real Estate Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend June 22, 2003 State pulls back 9-1-1 cell plan Budget cuts stall project to connect emergency callers to street addresses By SARAH LEMON Mail Tribune Oregon’s budget woes may force the state to put cell phone callers who dial 9-1-1 on "hold." Jackson County was in line this month to build a system allowing 9-1-1 operators to locate cell phone callers automatically. A computerized mapping program in 9-1-1 centers would pinpoint the location of callers anywhere in Jackson County, said Millie Tirapelle, director of the 9-1-1 center Southern Oregon Regional Communications. The tool — known as "phase two wireless" — would be invaluable to operators, she said. "The majority of the time, wireless callers don’t know where they’re calling from," Tirapelle said. Now, however, officials say installation of the system will wait, possibly as long as a year. Advertisement Mapping technology to locate wireless callers is scheduled to be in place nationwide by January 2005, said Ken Keim, director of Oregon Emergency Management. Oregon was ahead of schedule, but the project has stalled until the Legislature approves Emergency Management’s budget, Keim said. To plug a hole in last year’s general fund budget, legislators took more than $10 million from an account of about $14 million set aside to build the system, he said. From July through September, the state also will divert to the general fund phone bill taxes levied to pay for the wireless plan, Keim said. Wireless and standard phone users now pay 75 cents per month for the system, he added. There are about 1.3 million cell phones and 2 million wire-line phones in Oregon, Keim said. As phone taxes are siphoned away and the state’s budget remains uncertain, the project may be in limbo until next year, Keim said. He said he’s hopeful the phone taxes will provide enough money by then to restart the project and bring counties online slowly. Meanwhile, public safety officials herald the plan as indispensable given the current level of cell phone use and the expected increase as Oregonians replace their standard wire-line phones with cell phones. "As we migrate to wireless, we’re starting to get calls from people’s residences where they’re in trouble, and we don’t have an address for them," Tirapelle said. Dispatchers now automatically receive street addresses for callers on a standard-wire phone. Cell phone calls make up about 35 percent of calls to both Southern Oregon Regional Communications and the city of Medford’s Central Communications, or CCOM, agency managers said. An average of 50 percent of calls to 9-1-1 centers across the state come from cell phones, Keim said, adding that Oregon has one of the highest cell-phone user ratios in the country. "When there is an emergency ... the first thing people do is pick up their cell phones," said Paula Gibson, CCOM manager. "For people trying to come up with and describe a location ... (an emergency) even becomes more frustrating," she said. The ability to connect a map coordinate to a cell phone caller in the state’s forests and outdoor recreation areas would both focus and speed up search missions, said Capt. Joe Puckett of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department. Searchers last month combed the Ashland watershed for more than 10 hours before finding two lost mountain bikers. The bicyclists communicated with crews intermittently via cell phone but weren’t able to provide specific information on their location, only that they were near a creek somewhere between Mount Ashland and the city, Puckett said. If the phase two wireless plan was in place, crews most likely could have rescued the pair within an hour, he said. Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail [email protected] Two propose federal money for program The Associated Press Nationwide, only one in 10 emergency call centers have the equipment needed to precisely locate cellular callers, according to the National Emergency Number Association. Public safety officials and lawmakers say a lack of money from cash-strapped local governments is slowing the nationwide rollout. Some states, like Oregon, have diverted millions of dollars in 9-1-1 funds collected as taxes from consumer phone bills to plug budget shortfalls elsewhere. Sens. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., have proposed legislation to provide $500 million in annual grants for updating 9-1-1 services and training emergency workers. States that divert funds intended for E9-1-1 would be denied the grants. While consumers, particularly the elderly, want the protection of E9-1-1, the system raises questions about civil rights and privacy, said Chris Murray of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine. "Any technology that is used to locate a caller with precision has a potential for misuse," he said. 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