Muskingum County 911 coordinator to change

ZANESVILLE, Ohio- The Muskingum County 911 coordinator will soon be changing hands.

Bo Keck, the current coordinator, will be stepping down moving the responsibility to the Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office.

“It’s not only a huge asset to us it’s a huge asset to our county because when somebody calls 911 we want the right service to get there,” said Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz.  “So this comes down to the nuts and bolts of it is when somebody calls 911 they’re going to tell us if they want police, if they want fire, if they want a squad, or if there’s an issue and then we want to get the person that they need to them as soon as possible.”

One of the main responsibilities is to ensure that addresses are correct when dispatch calls are received to guarantee the correct units are responding to the emergency as quickly as possible.

“You take a county our size we have a lot of different responses with police, fire and EMS, so we coordinate that with the sheriff’s office and with our GIS (geographic information system),” said Keck. “Our goal, like the sheriff said, is that when someone calls 911 they get the right dispatch center and the dispatch center knows for sure which police fire and EMS are to go to that.”

The county commissioners will also be working to replace Keck’s other role as director of the Emergency Management Agency.