July 1, 2009

Today, the Village of Holly Police and Fire Dispatch Center (Public Safety Answering Point) in addition to acting as the primary 911 center for the Village, assumed that role for Groveland Township. The dispatch center managed by the Holly Police Department has undergone a complete transformation over the past two years.

The Holly community voted to increase property taxes (2 mills) in 2006 to reinvent the local public safety answering point and make it a state of the art Emergency Communications Center for police and fire operations. The project has taken two years, and an investment of more than $500,000.00 to rebuild the center from the ground up.

The Holly Dispatch Center is the first dispatch center in Oakland County, and in Michigan to activate the VESTA PALLAS next generation 911 emergency call center solution. "To have a solution with a clear migration capability from conventional communications to Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), will ensure that our center will have the most comprehensive, reliable and cost-effective solution available" Chief Rollie Gackstetter said.

Technology is evolving and is now more mobile than ever. First cell phones, and now Voice Over IP (VOIP), text messaging, imagery and video have changed everything about how the general public makes an emergency call, to the way in which a 911 center fields the calls and first responders are dispatched. This has created problems for 911 centers across the country that must find solutions that seamlessly route these communications platforms into a E 911 center for effective processing. VESTA Pallas seamlessly handles both emergency and administrative calls in an easily installable, highly reliable, low maintenance turnkey solution.

The Holly project included the new digital public safety communications network called Open Sky and the next generation Plant CML, VESTA PALLAS solution. These two critical elements to the project were supported by Oakland County CLEMIS director Joseph Sullivan and the Oakland County 911 Coordinator Patricia Coates. Chief Rollie Gackstetter said, "The leadership of CLEMIS has mapped out a direction for the future in Oakland County, and they are providing the support for small and large agencies to make it happen."

The Holly 911 Emergency Call Center now serves more than 13,000 residents in 38 square miles of North West Oakland County.