Two Oakland city councilmembers are pressing staff for action and answers as they try to determine why the city’s 911 and non-emergency answering times are among the worst in the state. 911 and non-emergency calls are answered by the same emergency communication center in Oakland.
Among the councilmembers’ inquiries: Why human resources may have stopped continuous recruitment of dispatchers in recent years contributing to the staffing shortfall Oakland’s 911 center is now experiencing.
“I was dumbfounded to hear that, for a period of time, we were not doing continuous recruitment [of dispatchers],” Councilmember Dan Kalb said at a recent council meeting.
Kalb has introduced a resolution addressing Oakland’s 911 issues the Investigative Unit has been reporting on since July. The resolution directed the city administrator’s office to report back to city council the actions it’s taken to recruit and retain dispatchers.
"I've asked for a retention plan. Recruitment is critically important, but a retention plan is absolutely critical as well," he said in an interview with the Investigative Unit this week.
Staff has until December to present the report. A city spokesperson told NBC Bay Area Wednesday staff is on schedule.
In addition to Kalb’s resolution, City Councilmember Janani Ramachandran submitted 27 questions to Oakland police, human resources and the city administrator’s office to answer related to 911 hiring and staffing. City staff is expected to provide answers at a public meeting in November.
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Kalb has been an Oakland city councilmember since 2013. The city’s 911 center has had issues for years, but this is the first time he’s heard of 911 hold times being egregiously long.
“Sometimes, I’m hearing 10, 15, 20 minutes. I mean that’s ridiculous…20 minute hold time, someone has a heart attack, they’re gone,” he said. “I’ve never heard the stories that I’ve been hearing over the past several months.”
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During the interview, Kalb elaborated on his concern that police administration and human resources may have stopped recruiting dispatchers in recent years – and fixed the issue about a month ago.
“One thing that I heard about that happened the past couple of years that I'm really baffled about is that we used to have what we call continuous recruitment, where we’re continually recruiting more and more 911 dispatchers. And then, I was told, that sometime in the past couple of years that was taken away,” Kalb said.
In a public meeting, Deputy Director Kiona Suttle with the Oakland Police Department confirmed human resources took down a dispatcher position by mistake for about a month this year. But she said she couldn’t speak about what may have happened during the pandemic.
The Investigative Unit reached out to Oakland’s communication team with this same concern. A city spokesperson said although dispatcher recruitment did not appear to be continuous publicly before this year, recruiting was continuous behind the scenes. The city is now actively hiring and wants people to apply.
To catch up on all of the Investigative Unit’s 911 reporting go to www.nbcbayarea.com/911.
