State advisor ‘blindsided' by Next Gen 911 safety concerns in NBC Bay Area reports

A State 911 Advisory Board member said he was blindsided by serious public safety concerns regarding California’s Next Generation 911 project recently exposed in an NBC Bay Area investigation, noting the board has largely been kept in the dark about the extent of those issues by the state and its contractors.

Martinez Police Chief Andrew White says the problems dispatchers are facing on the ground while using the new system, which has yet to be rolled out across the entire state, aren’t being reported to people like him, those tasked with monitoring and advising on of the state’s massive 911 system overhaul.

“You’re going to experience certain issues,” White said. “But the scope and intensity of those issues, I think, was certainly surprising for me.”

Martinez said the advisory board hadn’t even been told that the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) recently parted ways with Budge Currier, the state official in charge of the entire project.

“I wasn’t aware that the sort of architect behind the project had left Cal OES,” White said. “I learned that through your reporting.”

The half-billion-dollar NG911 project aims to modernize the state’s aging 9-1-1 infrastructure. But as NBC Bay Area reported last week, the project has been beset by setbacks and safety issues, as documented by some of the first dispatchers to use the new system.

Pages of memos and reports obtained through the California Public Records Act detail misrouted calls, lost calls, and at one point, a 12-hour outage in Tuolumne County, the first dispatch center in the state to go live with NG911. 

Two retired dispatchers there said the deployment process was disastrous and even delayed life-saving responses.

“I felt like we were the test agency, and they were testing our lives,” said former Tuolumne County dispatcher LeAnn Castleberry, who retired last year.

A project insider, who spoke to NBC Bay Aea on the condition of anonymity, said he believes these problems were caused by Cal OES’s decision to hire inexperienced companies to build the network – something the state and some of those companies have refuted.

Chief White is still an advocate for the project, and few people have questioned the need to bring the state’s 9-1-1 system into the 21st century. However, he said it’s problematic that he and other board members weren’t informed of the extent of the issues on the ground in some places where the new network has been rolled out.

“We don’t want to lose the confidence of the frontline dispatchers,” said White, adding that he’s begun calling emergency dispatch centers on his own to learn more about their experiences, and has also submitted an inquiry to Cal OES.

The State 911 Advisory Board consists of 11 Governor-appointed positions filled by a range of California law enforcement and 911 leaders. Its purpose is to help promote communication between 911 centers and Cal OES, and advise on policies and projects such as Next Generation 911.

The Investigative Unit reached out to every board member about the findings of NBC Bay Area’s investigations and whether they feel they were adequately looped in concerning any project missteps. Only Chief White and California Highway Patrol Assistant Commissioner Rodney Ellison responded.

In a statement, Ellison said: “The CHP supports innovation. We want to be contemporary. We understand when we do that, it’s going to take work.  Situations are going to come up that we have to look into. We are always looking for the best way to serve California.”

Neither Cal OES nor the four companies contracted by the state to build the NG911 network responded to interview requests for this story. However, Cal OES said last month it believes the project is on track, despite years of delays, and that it’s working to improve oversight.

White, who started his career as a dispatcher, said it’s important the state prioritizes transparency on such a critical project. 

“I think we owe that to the dispatchers; we owe it to the community to make sure that they know which direction we’re headed,” White said.

The state’s next 911 advisory board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, where White said he hopes some of his concerns will be addressed.

Catch up on all of NBC Bay Area's investigations on CA Next Generation 911:

Part 1: California's 'disastrous' Next Gen 911 rollout delaying life-saving help, records show

Part 2: 'Lives are at stake': Next Gen 911 insiders say CA hired inexperienced companies

Part 3: State official ‘blindsided’ by Next Gen 911 safety concerns in NBC Bay Area reports

Future follow-up reports will be posted here: nbcbayarea.com/nextgen911

If you have a comment about this report or another investigation tip, email reporter Candice Nguyen at candice.nguyen@nbcuni.com.