The Dallas County Sheriff’s office dispatch center will soon be moving from the 902 Court Street building to the old county care facility north of Adel.

Sheriff Chad Leonard says the move is necessary to accommodate all the new communications equipment they will be getting.  He says they will be in a separate wing of the newly renovated human services campus that is not connected to the rest of the building from the inside.

The communications department was part of the plans for a new jail each time it was on the ballot before voters but Sheriff Leonard says even if that bond does pass at some point, dispatch will remain where it’s at.

“This is one and done.  It will be out there for the foreseeable future.  If the (new) sheriff’s office ever passes with the voters we won’t move it into the new facility.  It would be nice because the whole goal is to get everything under one roof but we have communications issues (now).  I mean there’s fire departments and police departments that are having problems with communications ever since we narrow banded the frequency and that’s key to our operations.  So we need to whatever we can to upgrade that and we’ve found a way to do it so we’ve moving forward with that.  It’s towards the center of the county so it will benefit everybody.”

The campus is still being renovated, with plans to move several departments to the building yet this year.