The Sandoval County Regional Emergency Communications Center in Bernalillo formally opened July 1, 2025, to take over 911 dispatches for areas outside Rio Rancho city limits, yet the center has struggled from the outset with call routing and radio relay problems that continue to affect emergency response across the county.

County leaders acknowledged that only landline calls and calls from T‑Mobile customers were routing properly to the new facility, leaving the bulk of 911 traffic to be handled by the Rio Rancho dispatch center. Rio Rancho had withdrawn from the joint operations setup nearly two years earlier, and since July has fielded roughly 3,000 additional calls for Sandoval County — a workload that city officials argue strains resources funded by Rio Rancho taxpayers.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony in late July celebrated the new center even as county officials conceded technical glitches remained. By early August, Rio Rancho officials stopped manual rerouting of calls to avoid destabilizing systems, instead answering all county 911 calls and relaying dispatches to county units by radio. That interim arrangement raised alarms at a governance board meeting in August, where first responders outlined concerns about communication breakdowns and delays that could imperil public safety.

Operational troubles persisted into September. County reports and local media coverage indicate call misrouting continued, and radio relay delays were reported at as much as four to five minutes. Those delays are particularly consequential for rural communities such as Placitas, Cuba and parts of Bernalillo, where accurate geographic information system mapping and rapid coordination between dispatch and field responders are vital to reaching homes on remote roads and addressing time‑sensitive medical and fire emergencies.

County officials have publicly attributed many of the difficulties to state‑approved telecommunications vendors and to a broader statewide 911 upgrade that has been postponed. The county set a target date of September 15, 2025, for the necessary upgrades to be installed so that call routing could function as intended and the Bernalillo center could assume full operations. As of the last verified reporting in September 2025, there were no confirmed updates indicating whether the upgrades resolved the issues.

Notable local figures involved in the unfolding situation include Sandoval County Deputy Manager Eric Masterson, County Manager Wayne Johnson — who noted efforts to improve GIS mapping to better serve rural areas — and municipal leaders in Rio Rancho who criticized county readiness. First responders, including Bernalillo Fire Chief A.J. Bonnett and Operations Manager Amber Cantril, have raised safety concerns linked to the technical problems.

For Sandoval County residents, the central question remains whether the new dispatch center can be brought to full functionality without jeopardizing emergency response times. County and municipal meeting records, future vendor statements and follow‑up reporting will be key to verifying whether the September upgrade target resolved routing and relay failures, or if further corrective action will be necessary to secure reliable 911 service for the county's growing and geographically dispersed communities.