Comedy of Errors; Tragedy by Choice.

2011-09-07 The following letter was sent to bTucson on Aug 23, however it seems particularly relevent today given Mike Letcher's ouster.  In particular, if you agree with LaFond's points, there may be more housecleaning in order than only the city manager.

This letter was written before the transfer of 911 call center reponsibility to the Fire Dept.

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Ron Lewis, the Director of General Services, and Isaiah Twombly, the Administrator of Communications, decided that they had a master plan to re-invent the Emergency Communications Center. Their plan was beyond arrogant. It consisted of re-organizing in every conceivable way one of the best public safety communications centers with an extraordinary proven record of consistent reliability and outstanding performance. This was the same Emergency Communications Center that so effectively coordinated the fire department and helicopter responses to the Tucson shooting incident of January 8, coordinating with hospitals, helping to save the life of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Their plan was half-baked but aggressive. It meant changes in all the major equipment, in procedures, in staffing, in configuration, and reductions in service, both in terms of quality and level of service. They were even going to eliminate Pima County MEDS Control, which was the function that made success on January 8 possible.

Central to their plan, and their cover for reducing staffing (which is the major cost to
operations), was to connect the 911 answering positions and the fire/medical communications
positions to the Meridian Automatic Call Distributor. This computerized equipment was already being used by Tucson Police Communications for their operation; however, it had some known
issues, which were troublesome to their operation, especially during periods of greatly reduced
staffing. In 2007, TPD admitted that the system was dropping calls, and attempts were made at
repairs. The problem improved greatly, reducing the frequency of dropped calls, but it was never
completely eliminated. This left some danger to the public, but the danger was limited because
most phone calls to police, perhaps roughly 95%, do not require an emergency response, and
citizens can usually call right back and get through. Of course, I should mention that even one
dropped call can cost a life, even for law enforcement. However, the nature of fire and medical phone calls are quite different altogether, where roughly 95% of calls require lights and sirens and callers may have only one chance, so connecting to the Meridian ACD was a terrible decision.

Carla Reece, the Superintendent of the Operations Section, with many years of public safety experience in our Emergency Communications Center, warned Ron Lewis and Isaiah Twombly not to connect to the ACD. Key personnel of Tucson Fire Department also warned them not to connect to the ACD. At least one of their floor supervisors warned them not to connect to the ACD. After the rumor about their plans was known, many Public Safety Dispatchers and Emergency 911 Operators warned them not to connect to the ACD. And we all had good reasons, but management ignored all of this public safety experience in favor of their own narcissism.

But that was not all they would do. As early as February, they stopped properly staffing the operation, without declaring the policy. The policy was openly declared on April 1, 2011 in a
memorandum, however, stating that they would simply not fill all of the floor vacancies with
overtime, leaving the operation short-staffed. This was an effective reduction in service to the fire departments and to the public, although they deny it without reason.

In addition, the managers would effect configuration changes, altering the designated
duties of some positions. They would further reduce staffing by consolidating some positions.
Procedural changes would also be forced, although the exact nature of those changes had not
been planned out fully. All of this would be on top of other equipment changes that had already
long been in the works, the new iCAD, which is to be implemented this fall. Worst of all, the
immediate changes were going to happen all at once without employee input and only seven
weeks notice to Public Safety Dispatchers and Emergency 911 Operators.

The ACD was upgraded but never live tested with its new configuration and loads. Employees received only four hours classroom training and no practical training before being subjected to live calls. Procedures had not been worked out in advance and employees had to adapt in the live emergency call situation, effectively making all of Tucson public safety an huge experiment. The implementation was imprudently done all at once rather than rolling the new configuration into service in stages.

As soon as call-load picked up the morning of the switch to the new system, May 25, the malfunctions were apparent; but instead of reverting back to the previous system, management insisted on continuing the experiment creating untold hazards to citizens. On June 1, a ten year old girl died, possibly due to a dispatch delay of over eight minutes. This bad dispatch can be blamed on many factors, but certainly included short staffing, equipment malfunctions, and functional changes in the operation. Instead of rethinking their commitment to the changes, on June 7, Qwest dismantled and removed the old equipment so that it would be “impossible” to revert back, even though there was supposedly a 30-day acceptance (trial) period. Ron Lewis originally misquoted it as a 60-day acceptance period, but admitted that he had not read the contract.

Major equipment malfunctions began to flippantly be called “glitches” by supervisors, and the name caught on; but these same problems would have been consider serious a week earlier when they were not common. In the meltdown of standards, the dangerous conditions have become the new norm. I reported the sad state of our operation in an email on June 12, and, on June 17, I was sent home for looking at the computer records of the June 1 incident. I was discharged for researching that incident on July 7.

Since then, Ron Lewis has alternatively blamed Qwest and made light of the situation by saying that Qwest is handling it; he says the problems were repaired in the first few days, and he says that the problems continue and Qwest/Century Link is available around the clock. There is no danger to public safety, and the danger will be fixed soon. He will try to fix the problem, but he cannot give any guarantees about when it will be fixed. Employees are under a gag order, but
some are allowed on a committee. Ron Lewis has engaged and continues in this double-speak
with the City Manager, the City Council, and the press. Even the county consortium of fire
departments cannot get information from General Services, although they pay General Services for the communications service; so they have had to make Freedom of Information Act requests from their own communications provider! Yet, the danger to the public persists unabated and without any commitment by Ron Lewis to repair 911 services.
Stop the cover-up and the lies; just fix the problem. Please.

Michael LaFond
Discharged Emergency 911 Operator
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