STRONGSVILLE, Ohio -- In a 4-3 vote last week, City Council decided to merge Strongsville’s Southwest Emergency Dispatch Center on Pearl Road with Chagrin Valley Dispatch.

At the Sept. 15 council meeting, council members Tom Clark, Jim Kaminski, Gordon Short and Brian Spring voted in favor of the merger.

Council members Jim Carbone, Kelly Kosek and Ann Roff voted against it.

“If we join Chagrin Valley Dispatch, we will lose the connection that our first responders (dispatchers) have to our paramedics and our police officers,” Kosek said.

“They will lose those day-to-day interactions and connections that they experience here in Strongsville,” Kosek said.

“And those connections are part of what enables them to be the best first responders.”

Kaminski disagreed.

“To me, this (merging wi

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