San Bernardino County opens $125.6 million emergency dispatch hub

San Bernardino County: County officials cut the ribbon Tuesday on the Valley Communications Center, a 75,000-square-foot facility that co-locates the county Office of Emergency Services, the Sheriff's Valley Dispatch Center and CONFIRE fire-and-EMS dispatch. The $125.6 million project was funded with $106 million in ARPA money, $19 million in county discretionary funds and about $600,000 from participating agencies. The Sheriff's center alone houses roughly 121 dispatch personnel and handled more than 178,000 emergency 911 calls last year across nine jurisdictions; CONFIRE processes about 383,000 annually. The building is engineered to keep running through a major earthquake, with seismic isolators allowing 12 feet of lateral movement, backup generators and on-site water storage.