Dallas Council Completes Hearing on Verified Response, Doesn’t Set Date on Vote

DALLAS

The Dallas City Council finished a public hearing on a
proposal for a verified response alarm policy in the city
with no firm date made on a future vote on the proposal and
the city’s mayor reportedly saying the council is now split
on the subject. Dallas is considering a police
recommendation where alarm companies would be forced to
hire private security guards to verify alarms before police
respond.

A packed council chamber

greeted the Oct. 12 public
hearing on the proposal
, with strong opposition raised
to the new policy. The council then agreed to continue the
hearing on Oct. 26.

Scott Wesolowski, alarm ordinance compliance specialist for
Dallas-based Monitronics Int’l, attended the Oct. 26
session and says the strong opposition continued with
Dallas Mayor Laura Miller expressing that she wanted to
hear from as many speakers on the subject as possible.

“She stated that it was just a hearing to hear people’s
concerns and there was not going to be a vote and that the
council was split,” Wesolowski says. “She wanted to get our
input. On Oct. 12, a lot of our voices weren’t heard.”

A spokesperson for the Dallas city manager’s office told
SSI that it is unclear when the vote will take
place, if at all. The council’s next meeting is Nov. 9.

When the verified response proposal was HREF=’t_ci_newsView.cfm?nid=2448′ TARGET=’_blank’>first
made in August
, some alarm industry officials told
SSI that they were resigned that verified response
was going to go into effect in Dallas. In fact, the
proposal got through a council committee by a 7-1 vote.

However, Wesolowski says the momentum is now with the alarm
industry after a vocal opposition from Dallas citizens as
well as the editorial board of the Dallas Morning
News
.

“A lot of people just don’t want it and the council has to
take it into consideration,”  Wesolowski says. “Being that
they’re citizens themselves, they’re sitting back and
seeing the big picture.”

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