The air waves in and out of the Colorado State Patrol Communications Center in Durango will go silent next Wednesday when police dispatch service to Southwest Colorado will be transferred to a consolidated regional communication center in Montrose.

Durango CSP Communica-tion Supervisor Linde Brinkhoff said Wednesday that the move to Montrose comes as part of a ten-year plan by the Colorado Legislature to streamline communication operations and to increase the efficiency of the state patrol.

"Originally there were 23 communication centers around Colorado and those were all consolidated into five (centers)," Brinkhoff said.

The four other regional communication centers in the state will be located in Denver, Craig, Pueblo and Alamosa.

"The official switch-over date is July 1, but we expect to be online in Montrose by 7 a.m. on June 28," said Brinkhoff.

"With the exception of two (Durango center employees), everyone will be transferring to the Montrose Center," she said.

The CSP dispatch center in Durango currently dispatches seven troopers, one corporal and one sergeant in Montezuma County, as well as troopers in Dolores, La Plata, San Juan, Archuleta, Mineral and Hinsdale counties.

The main office for the state patrol in Southwest Colorado will continue to be in Durango, although there are plans to establish a permanent base for troopers in Montezuma County at the Sleeping Ute rest stop on U.S. Highway 160 east of Cortez.

Brinkhoff said that because nearly all of the Durango Center employees are transferring to the new communication center in Montrose, their working knowledge of the Southwest Colorado area won’t be lost.

Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Ted Griffith, who is based in Cortez, added that the Montrose dispatchers will be invited to ride with troopers patrolling the Cortez and Durango areas. New computer equipment that will be installed in the state patrol cars will also help troopers patrol rural areas, he said.

"By doing this, the dispatchers will become more familiar with the area," Griffith said. "By also using computer-generated maps of a designated area, the communication between the troopers and the dispatchers will be more efficient."

The Montrose dispatch center will handle calls from the New Mexico state line to Delta, and from the Utah state line to Wolf Creek Pass.

While local emergency agencies will still handle 911 emergency calls and can call local troopers via radio to get them to respond to accidents and other incidents, local residents will now need to dial a long-distance phone number in order to reach the state patrol directly.

Brinkhoff said, "The only problem or concern that people have — that we know of — is that they will end up having to dial a long distance number in order to get a hold of us."

"It is our hope that we will be doing 911 (in the future) and that will make us more efficient," she said.

Other local agencies affected by the consolidation include the state highway department, the U.S. Forest Service, the Colorado Division of Wildlife, the Department of Revenue and the San Juan County, Colo., Sheriff’s Office.

"(The consolidation) will not affect the troop at all except that we will be dispatching from a different location. It is our goal to maintain or increase service to the community," Brinkhoff said.

Griffith said that before the move takes place, new technology will be added to local patrol cars in an effort to improve the level of service.

The Colorado State Patrol has contracted with Printrack International Inc., of Anaheim, Calif., to provide computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and records management systems (RMS).

These additions, which are utilized through laptop computers installed into patrol cars, will enable troopers to obtain immediate access to state driver’s information and federal databases.

"The interface between mobile data computers in the patrol cars, the RMS and the CAD system lays the foundation for the Colorado State Patrol to migrate to a paperless patrol car," said Col. Lonnie Westphal, chief of the Colorado State Patrol, in a news release.