CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio — Pickaway County commissioners moved a discussion of the county’s long-delayed 911 dispatch system behind closed doors during their Aug. 25 meeting, citing a “safety issue,” according to a report posted to Facebook by TVAO, or Teays Valley Against Overgrowth, a citizens group that has organized around growth issues in the Teays Valley Local School District area.
Scioto Township Fire Assistant Chief Spencer Bennett was on the public agenda to discuss the county’s computer-aided dispatch system, the group said. As the item approached, Commissioner Harold Henson called Pickaway County Emergency Management Agency Director Tiffany Nash forward for a brief private conversation, after which Nash requested an executive session, according to the post. Commissioner Gary Scherer then made the motion to close the meeting, describing the reason as a “safety issue,” the group said.
Commissioner Jay Wippel was absent from the meeting, leaving Henson and Scherer to act on the request, according to the post. Joining commissioners in the closed session were Bennett; Nathan Smith of RTP/SMA; Eric Cotton, who works with the county’s IT department; and Mark Yarnell of Yarnell Consulting. Sheriff Matthew Hafey, who had already delivered his regular report and left the meeting, was called back to attend, the group said.
Before the doors closed, county IT officials told commissioners that biweekly meetings have been taking place between the county and its dispatch vendor, including continued work on fire run cards — the protocols that determine which units are sent to a given emergency — according to the post. Officials also said the county’s existing CentralSquare service, the system the new dispatch platform is replacing, is set to end Oct. 30 and will not be renewed, the group said.
TVAO’s post questioned whether commissioners could justify moving routine oversight questions behind closed doors, arguing that while technical or security-sensitive details about a 911 system may warrant an executive session, questions about the project’s timeline, cost and whether first responders will get a formal voice in it do not compromise dispatch security.
The closed-door session came amid a nearly two-year effort to replace the county’s dispatch software. Pickaway County has been under contract with vendor ID Networks since 2024 to build a new computer-aided dispatch system, a project originally expected to take about four months. Commissioners said during a July 14 meeting that the system remained on track to go live by the end of summer, though the rollout has been repeatedly delayed by data-conversion issues, mapping problems and the late delivery of fire run cards.
Bennett has pushed commissioners for weeks to create a formal dispatch oversight committee that would give fire departments, police agencies and other users of the 911 system a voice in the project. He raised the proposal alongside fire chiefs from Harrison Township and Scioto Township fire departments during a July 28 commissioners meeting, though commissioners took no formal action on it at the time.
The information contained in this story was obtained from a Facebook post by TVAO (Teays Valley Against Overgrowth) and previous Pickaway County Board of Commissioners meetings. Pickaway County had not published board minutes confirming details of the Aug. 25 meeting as of this story’s publication.
