Under-Fire Center Gets New Director

The city of Nashville (Tenn.) has named Duane Phillips as permanent director of its much-criticized emergency communications center. Phillips was previously interim director of the center, and before that had managed the police department’s comm center before the police-fire merger in 2002. Phillips is the third director in two years at the center, which has been under fire from dispatchers for understaffing and poor management, and from citizens and from the police and fire department for dispatching mistakes. Phillips told a newspaper reporter that his top priorities are beefing up training, aggressive hiring and creating consistency. Read more here. Also read the archive of stories about the on-going comm center problems here.