Cities Respond to Grand Jury Report on Dispatching

The cities within Santa Clara County (N. Calif.) are duplicating the functions and costs of providing emergency communications, according to a civil grand jury, and more importantly, “middle-men” in handling 911 calls delays responses from 20 second to three minutes. The grand jury also noted there is no regional radio communications, leaving first responders with no way to communicate when handling mutual aid emergencies. In its report issued last May, the grand jury recommended that dispatching be implemented on a county level, and that radio communications be streamlined. Now the county’s local jurisdictions have submitted their official responses to the report, generally agreeing but noting they are already working on issues the report highlighted. Each city submitted a response, pointing out a few inaccuracies in the grand jury report. They all noted there is a computer-aided dispatch (CAD) data interchange program now underway, and there is also action to build a county-wide public safety radio network. Download (pdf) the grand jury report and all the responses from each jurisdiction here.