Upgrading 911 System in L.A.

* Discerning readers no doubt recognized that your story about the Los Angeles Police Department’s communications system failed to include testimony from any of the 190,000 callers who could not get through to emergency dispatchers on 911 (“911 Upgrade Is Hung Up 3 Years After Voter OK,” Jan. 17). Reason? There aren’t any.

The statistics you used to paint this unfairly critical picture do not reflect a lack of service or a public safety crisis; they merely show how many impatient callers hang up and redial 911 when they are not instantly connected with a dispatcher. We know these callers eventually get through because in the past 10 years, we have never had a complaint where a legitimate 911 caller could not get through.

Your unwarranted attack on our efforts to upgrade the system is even more misleading (“Desperate Calls Into the Void,” editorial, Jan. 18). Contrary to your assertions, we are on schedule and have made substantial progress on our promise to upgrade 911 service. Your distortions are a slap in the face to the many people who have literally devoted their lives to providing Angelenos with the best 911 system in the world.

What people need to understand is that the redesign and reconstruction of an incredibly complicated communications system takes time. We must follow industry standards in this effort; to do otherwise would be irresponsible. From the beginning, the bond measure was unofficially titled “Communications 2000,” a reference to the year the new system was expected to be in place. You can be assured that we will meet that goal.

While the city’s review processes can be annoying, most of them have their place. Even if we could eliminate them, the time needed to put the new system on line would not be shortened by much. We must be careful to design and contract for the best system we can buy with the precious tax dollars the people have made available.

CARLO CUDIO, Commander

Commanding Officer

Communications Group, LAPD