GREENFIELD — U.S. Sen. Ed Markey visited the Greenfield Fire Station on Thursday to discuss rural emergency response in Franklin County, with officials speaking candidly about the challenges, the necessity of state and federal support, and regionalization needs.
After Markey toured the new Fire Station on Main Street with Greenfield Fire Chief Robert Strahan, members of the state legislative delegation, local fire and police officials, and other local representatives convened for a roundtable discussion.
The group spoke about the value of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Interoperable Radio System (CoMIRS) in Franklin County, which Markey helped secure funding to support. CoMIRS is the state’s primary voice radio system, serving hundreds of local, county and state public safety agencies. This includes 60 agencies in Franklin County.
“That work is critical,” Markey said about CoMIRS adoption and county officials working to update the system, “and the leadership here is right to be focused upon it, especially when we consider the ongoing effects of climate change [and] the more intense weather events that we must contend with — whether it is devastating floods we saw again in 2023, ice storms of last year [or] the heat waves we have seen this summer.”
A $3 million grant from the state Executive Office of Technology Services and Security was used to pay for the public safety radios and their installation. In addition, the Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG) received $450,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to buy firefighter pagers that would be compatible with CoMIRS, as the former equipment was not.
“The system allows us to be able to talk not only to fire, police, EMS, emergency management directors, but it also allows us to talk to anybody else in the state that’s on the system, such as the State Police, Environmental Police, state hazardous materials team or anybody else responding to any large-scale event,” Deerfield Police Chief John Paciorek Jr. said, adding that he can speak to a bomb technician from Boston “crystal clear.”
Even with the communication upgrades between county agencies improving, concerns remain, especially around staff capacity and regionalization needs.
Turners Falls Fire Chief Todd Brunelle and Montague Center Fire Chief Luke Hartnett explained they are required to share services between their departments to ensure effective emergency responses.
“There’s just not enough providers of EMS for the population, and as we work in the same town, although separate departments, we have to work very closely together,” Brunelle said, with Hartnett adding that private ambulance services are increasingly unavailable, and Montague Center, with an all-volunteer department, will often request assistance from Turners Falls.
Strahan also spoke to this issue for both fire and EMS, saying it is expensive for new staff to be hired and stressing that regionalization is critical, even in full-time departments.
“We have to look at regionalization, even the big city department. And we’re relatively small, but for Franklin County, we’re big,” Strahan said. “We need to look at collaboration.”
Paciorek spoke to how both staffing shortages and an aging emergency response infrastructure have culminated in just two dispatchers covering emergency communications across Franklin County from the Shelburne Falls Dispatch Center. The dispatchers work in an outdated room above the Shelburne Falls State Police barracks on the Mohawk Trail, built more than a century ago, according to Paciorek. He added that there has been a 600% increase in call volume across the territory that the two dispatchers handle, and if the dispatch center were to be out of service, it would create a compromised system of emergency response.
“We all talk constantly [about how] in Franklin County, we’re one team, we’re one family,” he said, “but we know at the end of the day, if we’re going to survive and come out of the backside of any major event well-prepared, that’s our last critical point of failure.”
Despite the ongoing concerns over emergency response in the county, state legislators stressed their desire to coordinate and find solutions.
State Rep. Susannah Whipps, I-Athol, supported the idea that Paciorek put forward about a state-of-the-art regional dispatch facility. She noted her experience seeing the impact of the calls on Shelburne Control dispatchers, and that a new facility and increased staffing could help.
State Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, spoke to possible solutions, noting her continued support of a bill to create a municipal and public safety building authority, similar to existing authorities that help with building schools and libraries.
Additionally, Greenfield Community College President Michelle Schutt talked about programs for EMT training and a potential new police academy that could help introduce new staff to local departments who wish to stay in the county.
By the end of the discussion, Markey said to continue moving toward a shared goal of increased capacity for rural emergency response, a coordinating team could be created to consider ideas for filling in response gaps, including the idea for a regional dispatch center.
“I just love the incredible conversation that we’ve had where seconds make the difference in terms of health, fire, police, emergency response capability,” Markey said, pledging his support on the federal level. “And I think that this is very helpful.”