Need for Fire Dispatch Center Is Questioned

City Controller Laura Chick called Tuesday for a halt in the building of a $100-million dispatch center for the Los Angeles Fire Department, saying that plenty of space may be available in two new police dispatch centers.

Although $7 million has been spent on design and foundation work for the center, Chick told Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa that one of her private auditors has raised questions about the project.

“It is in the city’s economic interest to expeditiously, yet thoroughly, evaluate the potential of LAFD utilizing available capacity within the two existing LAPD communications centers,” Chick wrote in a letter to the mayor. “This should be completed before further financial commitments are made for a new dispatch center.”

Chick cited a report by auditor Kurt R. Sjoberg, who recently looked at other Fire Department operations too. He warned that bond-measure funds for new fire facilities might be wasted by a project “that may potentially be unnecessary.”

The Fire Department operates up to 25 consoles in the basement of City Hall East, where employees take emergency calls and dispatch department crews. Plans call for the dispatch operations to move to a complex at 500 E. Temple St.; ground has been broken on that building, which is also to include a new Emergency Operations Center and Police Operations Center, as well as a separate fire station.

Sjoberg said police officials told him that spacious communications centers built downtown and in the San Fernando Valley in the last three years have 25 extra consoles that could be used by Fire Department dispatchers “on a long-term basis.”

The department had experience using the police dispatch centers in October, when its consoles were out of service because of a power outage.

If the department’s dispatch portion of the complex is canceled, the city could also save on equipment, given that consoles cost $60,000 to $90,000 each, Sjoberg said.

Fire Chief William Bamattre and his deputies did not return calls Tuesday seeking comment about Chick’s proposal.