“We have incredible collaboration with the other police departments,” Younis told the Los Altos City Council at a study session Feb. 22. “This is a viable option, and we’re going to see significant cost savings.”
Shared systems will include Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Records Management Systems (RMS), Younis said.
Los Altos already shares an array of services with neighboring cities and Santa Clara County, including fire services provided by the county; animal control services shared with Los Altos Hills, Mountain View and Palo Alto; maintenance of a joint sewer system and water-quality control with Mountain View and Palo Alto; and various police services with the county and nearby municipalities.
Since 2007, representatives from the three cities – police services manager Elizabeth Vargas from Los Altos, Doug Kiner from Mountain View and Charlie Cullen from Palo Alto – have collaborated to forge a single set of public safety systems instead of each city maintaining separate and disparate systems, Younis said.
The project will be the first of its kind in Santa Clara County and could become a model that other cities emulate, Vargas said.
“I’m very excited about working on this project,” she said. “Doug, Charlie and I work very well together, and we build on each other’s strengths.”
Younis said the transition, expected to be seamless, will neither disrupt nor affect service for Los Altos residents.
“With shared cost savings in mind, the goal for the tri-city consolidation is for real-time communication and collaboration between and among Los Altos, Palo Alto and Mountain View during emergencies as well as the day-to-day delivery of public safety services,” Younis said. “Implementation of a shared CAD/RMS system will result in increased efficiency, reduced response time and improved service delivery.”
The cities are sharing equally the $77,120 cost for consulting services and $60,000 for design review, according to Younis. The cost of the joint public safety systems will total approximately $3 million, he said. Los Altos’ portion would amount to nearly $1 million, out of which $734,000 has been allocated through the city’s Capital Improvement Projects fund.
One objective in this virtual consolidation project is to adopt a common 911 emergency telephone system, which would allow the three cities to accommodate more state-of-the-art features and functionality of the Next Generation NG 911 system, Younis said. The NG 911 system would enable flexible call routing and handling so that officers of the three cities could respond sooner to emergency calls and offer assistance to one another more quickly, he added.
Funding to update Los Altos’ current emergency system would originate from the State 911 program via the 911 surcharge on wireless and landline telephones, he said.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Jana Seshadr
Quelle/Source: Los Altos Town Crier, 02.03.2011
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