County commissioners will consider connecting Bert Nash mental health team to 911 center; Wakarusa Drive extension project moves forward

photo by: Chris Conde

The Douglas County Courthouse is pictured in September 2018.

Douglas County may soon take a step to more directly connect a team of Bert Nash mental health professionals with the county’s 911 emergency dispatchers.

County commissioners at their weekly Wednesday meeting will consider a plan that would allow the Douglas County Emergency Communications Center, which handles 911 calls, to begin dispatching response team members mobile from the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center for specific types of calls involving mental health elements. .

Currently, Bert Nash’s team is receiving calls from the Kansas headquarters, which operates a suicide prevention line. But that arrangement resulted in insufficient use of the Bert Nash program, Bob Tryanski, director of behavioral health projects, said in a memo to commissioners.

Tryanski also said via the memo that it has been difficult for Bert Nash’s team to quickly access urgent issues, and that there are too many access points on the mental health team to reasonably keep up. and prioritize.

Tryanski and a county task force are recommending that the headquarters no longer be used as a source of calls for the mental health team, but instead that those calls come from the 911 center.

The County Commission will also consider redirecting up to $45,000 of existing funds from the Douglas County Crisis Line budget to purchase enhanced communications and geolocation tools as the Mobile Response Team transitions from headquarters Kansas Social at the Douglas County Emergency Communications Center.

Regarding other issues, at Wednesday’s meeting, commissioners:

• Consider approving a preliminary engineering contract for a project to extend Wakarusa Drive to a point south of the Wakarusa River.

Commissioners are being asked to approve an approximately $91,000 contract for BG Consultants to work on plotting the exact route of the new road and other similar details.

The Wakarusa Drive extension is expected to happen in conjunction with the Kansas Department of Transportation’s much larger project to expand the western portion of South Lawrence traffic from two to four lanes.

KDOT plans to start the SLT project this fall and aims to complete work by 2028. If county commissioners approve the engineering contract Wednesday, the Wakarusa Drive extension could begin construction in October 2025 and be open to traffic at some point in 2026, according to a memo from the county public works department.

County commissioners have already given preliminary approval to the Wakarusa expansion project, but the proposed road has raised concerns. As the Journal-World reported, city commissioners withdrew their support for the Wakarusa project after hearing residents’ concerns ranging from environmental issues to roads damaging land sacred to the Native American community. County commissioners, however, decided to move forward with the road project without the city’s partnership.

• Consider approval of Douglas County Cybersecurity Insurance Provider’s transition to Rubrik Enterprise Edition. According to an agenda note, Rubrik will “enable simplification and manageability to ensure 100% data recovery in the event of a ransomware attack or cyber incident.”

The Douglas County IT Department is seeking approval to enter into an agreement with Rubrik’s Backup Solution for a start-up cost of at least $113,000. There will also be an annual cost of about $79,000, which the county commission will approve at a later date.

The County Commission business meeting will begin Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in the Douglas County Public Works Training Room, 3755 E. 25th St. The meeting will also be available via Zoom.