In July 12 issue, Russell County News

At an "emergency special called meeting" of the Russell County Dispatch Board Wednesday morning the resignations of the supervisor and one other dispatcher were accepted, while five other dispatchers were hired.

The resignations of Shelia McGaha and Karen Loveless were accepted unanimously byt the board, according to Chairman Joseph M. Irvin.

He said that the board also voted to hire the other dispatchers as part-time employees.

“All of them are trained dispatchers, most of them are working as dispatchers at other agencies,” Irvin said. “And many of them had worked for the county in the past.”

He said the additional staff means that the dispatch center now has 2 full-time and 9 part-time dispatchers.

“That leaves us a lot of flexibility in scheduling,” added Irvin, who is the chief of Russell Springs’ police force.

In addition to that scheduling flexibility he said there are fiscal advantages to having more part-time employees, given the high cost of retirement and other benefits afforded full-time workers.

Hired this week were Vivvy Cape, Jenny Frank, Kim Popplewell, Miranda Luttrell and Sondra Wesley.

There are numerous other applications in-hand, Irvin said, and there are local peace officers who are also qualified to serve in dispatch if any other abrupt resignations occur, he added.

Irvin said the board had previously ordered the hiring of several of those who were hired this week, but it hadn’t happened.

Issues relating to the merger of the dispatch and ambulance service operations will be addressed at a special called meeting of the Russell County Ambulance Board Tuesday, July 15, at 7 p.m. in the ambulance building in the Jamestown Industrial Park.