By Susan Schwartz
Press Enterprise Writer

WILKES-BARRE — Luzerne County officials are refusing to release 9-1-1 recordings of dispatchers who sent firefighters to the wrong location during a fatal fire in Mocanaqua earlier this month.

A Right-to-Know request from the Press Enterprise seeking the audio recordings was turned down by attorney Shannon Crake Lapsansky, who handles public information requests for the county.

“It’s our policy not to release it without a court order or subpoena,” said Crake Lapsansky.

While state law allows counties to withhold the recordings, it also specifically says they can release 9-1-1 recordings and transcripts “if the agency or a court determines that the public interest in disclosure outweighs the interest in nondisclosure.”

“The General Assembly clearly said, in some cases, it’s in the public interest to release this,” said Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association.

“They’re completely ignoring the legislative intent, having this ‘We don’t ever release’ policy.

“It seems arbitrary to me, and it doesn’t make them look good.”

Crake Lapsansky refused to explain the reason for the county’s policy.

Eight-minute delay

A call about the matter to County Manager Robert C. Lawton’s office was referred back to Crake Lapsansky.

Two dispatchers were suspended after sending fire crews to Conyngham Borough instead of Mocanaqua in Conyngham Township, 15 miles away. It took the 9-1-1 center six minutes to dispatch the Mocanaqua Volunteer Fire Co., even though a paramedic almost immediately called in to tell dispatchers the correct location, said Valley Regional Fire Chief Richard Bognar. Mocanaqua Chief Steve McDaniels said it took another two minutes before his pager sounded.

Michelle Ann Dzoch, 52, died in the blaze.

Bognar said the dispatcher insisted a computer system identified the call as coming from Conyngham Borough. A county log entry typed in by 9-1-1 workers says the caller told them her location was “Mocanaqua — Conyngham Borough.”

Questions unanswered

• The newspaper requested the recordings in the hopes of answering several questions:
• How did the caller actually identify her location?
• Did the dispatcher make any effort to verify her location?
• Was the mistake the result of an error in the computer system that pinpoints callers’ locations?
• How did the dispatcher react when told the correct location of the fire?
• Did it take two minutes from the time dispatchers mobilized Mocanaqua firefighters until volunteers’ pagers sounded? If so, why?

In cases like this, Melewsky said, officials should release recordings.

“The public needs to understand how the mistakes were made,” she said. “Then they can gauge the county’s response. But they won’t be able to do that this time because the county has this black-and-white policy that makes no sense.”

County officials have said they won’t comment while they are investigating the issue.

A troubled history

This isn’t the first time Luzerne dispatch has made serious errors when dealing with rural locations on the lower end of the county. Complaints from fire chiefs and township supervisors date to at least 1996.

In 2008, a house in the Hemlock Springs development burned to the ground after dispatchers sent Huntington Valley Fire Co. to the blaze, even though that company had to pass Summerhill Fire Co. in Columbia County on the way to the development’s only entrance large enough for fire trucks. Summerhill was only 5 miles away from the entrance. It took 50 minutes for the first firefighters to arrive, according to logs.

In 2004, Salem Township supervisors complained that Luzerne dispatchers don’t know key local landmarks and the general lay of the land.