Longboat Key dispatch woes a learning process

Longboat Key residents, change your speed dials. 

For years, residents have dialed 316-1977 for direct backdoor communication with the Longboat Key Police Department to obtain information or for non-emergencies.

But Police Chief Pete Cumming has unveiled 316-1201 as the new Sarasota County sheriff-operated non-emergency number that residents can call to speak to a Longboat Key police communications specialist — after they speak with Sarasota County dispatchers.

Cumming said the changeover for the non-emergency number was necessary, because the Longboat police department didn’t have a central record-keeping system to track calls and dispatch time, but Sarasota County does. And his office provided county dispatchers with a list of landmarks along with their addresses to help train them in the ways of the Key.

“There’s going to be a learning curve,” Cumming said. “We had it down pat, but because the transition occurred someone’s just going to have to learn.”

B.J. Bishop, vice chairwoman of the Planning & Zoning Board, said she misses the familiarity local dispatchers had with residents. She worries that not having that direct contact right away with the Police Department takes away a valuable service residents have come to expect.

“If you’re just at the Seahorse or smaller hotels along the beach, you are not necessarily going to know the address,”  Bishop said. “With a local dispatcher, you could just say, ‘the Seahorse’.”

Ann Roth, a Lands End resident, had an experience that highlighted the same issue when she called to report a noise complaint earlier this year. The county dispatcher asked if there was a cross street when she said the noise was coming from Jewfish Key — an island located in the town's jurisdiction that's only accessible by boat — which Roth said during a previous interview with the Longboat Observer.

“They probably thought someone was making some disparaging remarks,” Bishop said with a laugh.

Roth said she has been hesitant to use the non-emergency number due to frustration with the dispatch system.

Town commissioners reached by the Longboat Observer had no complaints about the dispatch switchover.

“I haven’t heard anything,” said Vice Mayor Terry Gans. “You’re the first to tell me that anyone

has a problem; I’m not surprised because in any walk of life, anything you get into, someone’s liable to not be happy with it.” 

Commissioner Phill Younger agreed.

“I have no issues whatsoever,” Younger said. “The complaints and are a normal of a result of any change.”