If there’s something happening in the South County, there’s a good chance that the City of Ripon is involved in it somehow.

As the official dispatcher for the cities of Ripon, Escalon, and Lathrop, Ripon has worked to expand it’s dispatching capabilities to help support other municipalities in their effort to provide police protection for their residents – expanding it’s facility in Ripon and hiring additional personnel to meet the workload necessary to handle the influx of calls.

The additional positions are paid for by the cities of Escalon and Lathrop as part of the contract that the municipalities signed with the City of Ripon.

And that means that there are a lot more dispatchers working in Ripon today than there were before the contracts were signed.

After the City of Lathrop signed a dispatch services agreement with the City of Lathrop in October of 2021 – over six months before Lathrop began providing its own law enforcement services after more than three decades of contracted service with the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office – the dispatch center increased the number of needed dispatchers from 6 to 12.

New dispatch consoles were purchased, and the dispatch center was expanded to include six workstations instead of the four that existed before – allowing for additional personnel to have space to operate.

The Ripon Police Department will hold an open house in July where the Dispatch Center will be open for people to tour and see the upgrades that expansion that has taken place as a result of the expanded workload.

And Ripon has always been at the forefront of technology when it’s come to providing law enforcement services.

Back before surveillance cameras were plentiful, Ripon piloted a Motorola MESH System that allowed officers in patrol cars to view the live feed of cameras positioned strategically at locations in town. Those camera feeds were also able to be monitored from the Dispatch Center.

Ripon also made the decision to have 911 calls placed within city limits to be routed through the dispatch center as opposed to sent to the CHP dispatch center before being rerouted to the city – saving residents precious time in the event of an emergency.

To contact Bulletin reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.