The woman who for the past eight years has led Wri-Tex 911 will stay on as director of Texas County’s new 911 operation.
Texas County Emergency Services board member Jim McNiell said that out of five finalists recently interviewed for the position, the seven-member board selected Donna Robertson to be its director.
“All the candidates were good quality candidates,” McNiell said, “but based on her experience as the Wri-Tex director, she came out on top.”
Robertson, of Bendavis, said she’s glad the process is over and she can move on in the county’s new 911 era.
“I feel great about it,” she said. “I’m glad I’m going to be able to carry on and push this on into the next phase of 911.”
Wri-Tex 911 resulted from an agreement between Texas and Wright counties in 1995 to operate a two-county 911 system. But Wright County officials last year decided to terminate the arrangement and Texas County in turn put a 3/8-cent retail sales tax to fund a single-county system on the ballot in April that was overwhelmingly approved by voters.
Wright County voters approved a similar tax in November, but a new system there won’t be up and running any time soon, so effective Jan. 1, Texas County 911 will continue to provide service to Wright County for a fee of 40-percent of the system’s operational costs. That decision was finalized at a meeting Monday between the Emergency Services board and Wright County commissioners.
“It’s going to take a while for them to get organized and develop,” McNiell said. “They just appointed their board and their board hasn’t had a meeting yet.
“This way, the citizens of Wright County will still have a qualified 911 service.”
The 911 call center is still located on the campus of Texas County Memorial Hospital while construction continues at its new location in the old jail space at the county administration building in downtown Houston.
Robertson said that when all is said and done, and Texas County 911 takes on the added task of dispatching for the Texas County Sheriff’s Department sometime in 2015, she expects her staff to increase from its current level of 11 dispatchers to 13-15.