Tag Archives: Amarillo call center

local news

How’s it working at the communications center?

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Terry Childers arrived in Amarillo from Oklahoma City to become the interim city manager and then got into a bit of a tussle with the city’s emergency communications center.

He misplaced his briefcase at a local hotel where he was staying, assumed it might have been stolen, placed a 9-1-1 call to the center and then got into a beef with the dispatcher … who in my humble view was doing her job as she was trained to do.

That wasn’t good enough for Childers. His briefcase was recovered.

But the city manager made quite a stink about it until it was found. He wanted the hotel shut down; he wanted the cops to arrive immediately; he wanted to find that briefcase — dammit! — because it had important documents.

Well, after he settled down and cooled off, Childers ended up apologizing for the manner in which he acted. He also enacted some changes in the call center.

There apparently had been complaints about the procedures enacted when the city consolidated its emergency dispatch services into the new communications center. Wait times were too long, allegedly.

The changes involved putting police and fire supervisors on duty inside the call center to enable them to monitor more closely the response to the calls that came in.

My curiosity is naggingĀ me just a bit.

How’s the new system working? Are there still gripes about it? Has the closer monitoring alleviated the problems? Has it been fixed?

With all the attention paid to the dust-up when it occurred, it might be time for the city to provide an update on how the emergency communications center is doing its job.

Isn’t that a form of transparency?

local news

Childers finally says he’s sorry for 911 misstep

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Amarillo interim City Manager Terry Childers has re-thought what he said earlier this week.

He said initially in public that he regrets the manner in which a 911 call turned out.

Now he says he’s “sorry.” He’s issued an apology. In public. Out loud. To the city he administers.

There. Now, can we put this matter to rest?

This story needs to quiet down.

Amarillo has been through too much turmoil in the past year.

A new City Council majority promised “change.” It brought it. City Manager Jarrett Atkinson quit, as did other senior city staff.

The council brought in Childers, the former Oklahoma City manager, to steady the city’s administrative ship.

Then came the 911 call to the Amarillo Emergency Communication Center. He got agitated over the way the dispatcher responded to his report of a missing briefcase.

There’s been plenty of criticism being tossed around the city at the interim manager. I’ve heard rumblings that some of it has been quite ugly, although I have not seen or read any of it with my own eyes.

OK. He’s now said he’s sorry, which I guess lies near the heart of what concerned some residents.

Let’s hope this matter can be put to rest, that the interim manager can continue his work running the city and that the council can proceed with its search for a permanent chief administrator.

 

local news

Once more about the call center …

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It remains my hopeĀ that the Amarillo Police Department, the fire department and medical emergency services officials will spell out in detail what problems existed with the way the city’s central dispatch center was doing its job.

Interim City Manager Terry Childers’ 911 call the other day has resulted in changes to the way the call center works. The city now has assigned police officers and firefighters to work inside the call center alongside the personnel who answer calls requesting help.

Childers said the dispatcher with whom he spoke when he reported the “theft” of a briefcase at a local hotel was “uncourteous.” I’m not sure about that. I’ve listened to the recording and the dispatcher sounded cool, calm and professional.

But the changes brought immediately after the interim manager’s experience seem to suggest that something was wrong with the call center.

If so, what in the world was wrong? Can’t we get an accounting from the folks who run our police, fire and medical emergency departments on those problems? How systemic were they? Did calls go unanswered? Did anyone die as a result?

And if there were problems all along, why didn’t the city act before now?

Meanwhile, we’re left to wonder how it was that a senior city administrator would get so upset with an emergency dispatcher who he said didn’t respond appropriately — on a call involving a missing briefcase!

Some details would be welcome.