911 Backup Center Project to Be Completed by 2003

A new downtown 911 communications center will begin operations in July 2002, but a backup center in West Hills will not be completed until 2003, Los Angeles Police Department officials said Monday.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick, who heads the council’s Public Safety Committee, said she was disappointed to hear about the delay, which was explained during a briefing of her panel Monday.

But she said it is significant that the new 911 system will begin operating as originally planned in July 2002 when the downtown center is completed.

“The important distinction is not to have any delay in the full package of 911 services to the public,” Chick said.

Creating two inter-connected 911 centers that will back each other up but also operate at the same time is a complicated process that will require some extra time, said Roger Ham, the LAPD’s chief information officer.

“The systems are the unknowns . . . because no one has developed this kind of concept before, which is a dual dispatch center design,” Ham said.

Technicians want to get the downtown center operating before switching to a dual system, said Juan Zamora, a city analyst working on the project.

“It is the activation and turning on of the switch where you will have half your staff at one location and half the staff at the other location, and making that work, that is now being identified as requiring more time,” Zamora told the council panel.

The city Public Works Board voted last week to approve $37.7 million in contracts for construction of the two buildings. But installing the 911 system hardware and software will extend the downtown center work into a three-year project.

The projects have drawn criticism in the past for taking too long. Voters approved bonds to build the new 911 system in 1992.