Editor's note: Since this article was published in the January print edition and online, Harris County Emergency Services District No. 11 has filed a counterclaim against Cypress Creek Emergency Medical Services. Read about it here.

Harris County Emergency Services District No. 11 is making firmer plans for its future emergency medical services and 911 services.

Commissioner Kevin Brost said the district will build its own dispatch center and had met with the several entities that currently operate with Cypress Creek Emergency Medical Services. CCEMS currently serves as a dispatch facility for 17 emergency agencies. From those “interesting and heated” discussions, Brost said he wanted to bring those entities some options about what dispatching would look like under the district’s self-operated 911 service.

“We all know how extremely important it is ... that our first responder agencies are dispatched out of our own dispatch center,” Brost said.

Brost said Option A allows for the entities to be contracted out for a year until the district has built a back-up facility that all of the entities are joint owners. Dispatchers would be employees of the district, and agencies would be charged per call.

The second option involves the district receiving 911 calls while the entities dispatch from their own locations. Brost said in conversations with Montgomery County officials, who operate in this style, it is not efficient.