Automation Costs Operator City Hall Job

The next time you call City Hall, you might be talking to an automated telephone system with a choice of up to 895 recorded messages.

The human who has answered most of the calls to City Hall until now, Emily Ramirez, has accepted an early retirement offer, in lieu of being terminated to make way for the new system.

Such technology is hard to compete with, the 11-year city employee said.

“I think this is the new upcoming thing,” said Ramirez, 57. “Receptionists are becoming a thing of the past.”

City officials said the new system will allow callers to use touch-tone telephones to request information on hundreds of topics. By punching in three-digit extensions, callers can reach any department or get specifics on such things as senior citizen programs, youth activities, dance classes or business licenses.

But Ramirez, who answers about 75 calls a day, said people “will lose the personal touch, that warm feeling of a person behind that phone.”

The City Council this month voted to buy the $37,120 phone system, which is expected to save about $130,000 over the next five years. Councilwoman Jan M. Flory cast the dissenting vote, asking that Ramirez, whose last day is June 30, be kept while callers get accustomed to using the new system.

“I say keep [Ramirez] on for another year while we sell this system to our residents,” Flory said. “Keep her until our residents get used to using this.”

But Flory lost.

“I am a caveman,” Councilman Peter Godfrey confessed. “I need personal contact. But I’m not going to stop progress, and progress dictates that we move forward with the electronic age. We’re beyond the smokestack industry and into the information age. . . . People want more services for less money, and there’s no other way to do it. We have to become more efficient.”

The system will be installed and ready for use within three months, and guides on how to use it will be mailed to residents, officials said.