Greene County has reached an agreement to partner with Morgan County’s 9-1-1 system.
An Illinois law passed law year mandated the remaining eleven counties that don’t have the service, which includes Greene County, make some sort of 9-1-1 service available by July 2017.
Greene County Sheriff Rob McMillen says the Greene County 9-1-1 committee had the option of joining Morgan or Jersey County, and recommended a partnership with Morgan earlier this month.
“After meeting with both counties, we unanimously decided to recommend to the board Morgan County. It just seems like it was going to be a better fit for Greene County,” says McMillen.
“With Morgan County consolidating their dispatch centers, I think we will probably get some better service. We’re pretty excited about 9-1-1 coming to Greene County.”
Originally, McMillen said Jersey County appeared to be the only county interested in adding Greene, but he says Morgan County got involved more recently.
McMillen says a lot of work still needs to be done for 9-1-1 to truly to be up and running.
“We’re going to have to start from scratch. In all the cities- White Hall, Roodhouse, Greenfield, Carrollton- they already have street names and house numbers and everything. But, you’ve got the unincorporated villages like Hillview, Patterson, Rockbridge, Kane, Eldred, some of the areas like that, and also out in the rural areas, all the roads are going to have to be named, and addresses are going to have to be assigned,” he explains.
“They all have addresses, but it’s not going to be compatible with a 9-1-1 system.”
As McMillen told us previously, rural parts of Greene County need to be located on a map by emergency crews under the current system.
According to McMillen, an intergovernmental agreement must still be passed.