Judge Orders NYC To Release 911 Report

A state appellate judge has ordered New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to release an outside consultant’s report on the city’s emergency dispatch system, which reportedly is very critical of the 911, radio and dispatch systems the city has been constructing over the past 10 years. Judge Arthur Engoron gave the city five days to release the report, which had been subpoenaed by the city Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFFA) earlier this year. Bloomberg has refused to release the report, claiming it’s still in draft form, although it was completed by Winbourne Consulting and handed to the city last year. The study reportedly determined that response times have lengthened since the communications systems have been upgraded, that geofiles are inaccurate and that the full police-fire-EMS integration isn’t complete. The city has spent $2.3 billion to overhaul the emergency communication systems, about $1 billion over the original estimate. The UFFA claims that Bloomberg’s administration is concealing faults in the system for political purposes, and that the public’s safety is at stake. Read more about Bloomberg’s refusal to release the report here, and the judge’s decision here. Download (pdf) the UFFA’s subpoena court filing here.