Sep 20th was "Support Services", including Dept of Public Works, the
Information Services Division, Employee & Public Services (which
includes the 911 Dispatch Center which was the highlight of the
evening).
Dept of Public Works: Cities have their own versions - this is for the
county. Dept doe things like roads, sewers, motor pool, etc. 4
Divisions (my notes are unclear here). DPW Engineering (property
lines, property maps). Resource Protection (Env. Waste, Flood Control,
Recycling, etc): AB 939 - set in place waste reduction goals - county
didn't make it (no others did either). DPW administrates 40 special
districts (flood control, sewer districts, 11 lighting
districts, 2 landscaping districts, etc ). Also administers (?)
Transportation services (next week's topic) - Transit Authority, Joint
Powers Board (Caltrain), C/Cag (20 cities + county coordinating org),
and MTC. DPW also provides Road Services - 316 miles of roads
maintained - no general funds are used unless prop. owners allow for
assessment - they rely on state and fed funding - but the gas tax is
NOT indexed to inflation. DPW also maintains sheriff's vehicles. DPW
also provides facilities management, construction services to county
depts. DPW provides airport & admin services - computer support and
runs San Carlos (SQL) and Half Moon Bay GA airports which have
12,500lb weight limit.
DPW's recycling efforts - recycleworks.org - electronic recycling is
available in Belmont for FREE through goodwill!
DPW also showed GIS work they do - e.g. tsunami evac routes, surveys,
redistricting, etc - more info available online.
Next was the Information Services Division (of DPW, I assume). Really
interesting to me. They are more internal facing and manage voice,
telecom, radios (27 microwave sites in county for office of emergency
services). Maintain 2 large data centers, and are eliminating the one
remaining mainframe. Goals are 99.7% uptime for county systems. Some
depts have their own IT depts, others rely on ISD, or mix of
support. One major effort being put on was the data architecture
effort - to ensure that departments in three different areas (health &
human services, criminal justice & admin/fiscal/real property) could
more effectively share customer data. I asked if there was similar
data architecture work going on elsewhere - the answer was that San
Mateo County's needs were unique. Also, some other counties have tried
to take a centralized uber-database of identity of folks they serve,
wherease SMC's approach is to link databases using a common data
architecture within each of those three areas.
ISD has a budget of $14.6 million which they get as service costs to
other departments - a "0 net cost" department. 117 positions in the
department, 103 filled positions - hard to recruit and hire. They fill
out demand by "contractual support" (contractors, as I read it). They
keep a year or two behind the private sector in terms of technology
adoption.
Employee and Public Services Dept was up next - the "Human Resources"
dept for the entire county. County has 5500 employees, and is the 3rd
largest employer with 680 job classifications. The county gets 10,000
applications for employment a year. Employees are 80% represented by
unions. 10 unions representing employees.
Public Safety and Communications was next. They have responsbililty
for fire and emergency services in unincorpated areas of the county,
and the sheriff's office. This dept provides fire/ems dispatch for all
the county (including cities) and police dispatch for sheriff and the
following cities/communities: East Palo Alto, Broadmoor Police
District, Half Moon Bay and (as of next year) Millbrae. They also do
after-hours dispatching for various depts (ie calling someone out of
bed to perform a service - e.g. judges, repairs). The consolidated
dispatch center (which is located in the govt center in Redwood City)
is the largest in the bay area. There are 57 engines & stations and 14
trucks (ladder trucks) in the county. AMR is the ambulance
contractor.
The PS&C dept is also the Mutual Aid Coordinator for the area. There
is a "borderless response" policy in place for fire and ems throughout
the county (ie the closest available unit repsonds even if they cross
jurisdictional boundaries). The same applies for police departments as
long as they share frequencies. Freeway pursuits are handled with a
special plan that posts city police on key spots on the freeway to
pursue suspects that get off the freeway into their cities. They also
deal with special details (gang task force, avoid the 23, carseat
campaign).
The 9-1-1 (consolidated dispatch) center was amazing. Problems with
cell phones - 911 engineered only to work with hardlines. Even *more*
problems with VOIP. By state law, the police jurisdiction must answer
the phone and redirect emergency/fire calls. There is a 3 sec transfer
from police to fire (I can vouch for that delay having had to call 911
for fires twice here in San Mateo county).
Interesting facts on 911 & cell phones here in the county- in Belmont,
San Carlos, and Redwood City the cell towers will route the phone call
to the right *local* 911 center. Otherwise, the 911 calls from cell
phones go to the CHP 911 center in benicia which is completely
inundated and might put you on hold. CHP gets 2 million calls a year -
typical accidents generate 25 cell calls.
The call center has a *lot* of tech. There are betweeen 7 and 12
people on duty at any one time, working 12 hour shifts. 4 days on, 4
days off, 3 days on, 3 days off. Training is intense - 13 months
before you work a station - but the starting salary is $65k. Its
apparently hard to become a dispatcher. The SMC dept is a training
center for dispatchers.
Dispatchers are divided into two sections - law enforcement and
fire/medical. Fire/medical is considered a more senior role. Each
station has a separate frequency of set of frequencies, corresponding
to an geographic area (in the case of fire/medical) or agency (in the
case of police). The medical folks have a set of cards arranged in an
easy-to-access flip contraption to follow for medical calls. There's a
ton of GIS-related stuff there. The most interesting was the system
that had some green dots - we were told that when a bank robber steals
a money bag, a little red light shows up indicating where the money
bag is.
The director of the 911 center, when asked whether the dispatchers got
special counseling or pyschological help because of their job, she
responded something to the effect of "no, they don't really need
it. They're unique individuals. They have a twisted sense of humor and
they deal with it very well". Heh. Sounds a little familiar.
