Mayor Greg Nickels has come up with an idea he says will make life easier for Seattle residents trying to connect with city services about problems that aren't emergencies.
It's a call center people could reach by dialing 311, and Nickels wants the Seattle City Council to sign off on the idea and spend $8.9 million next year to set up and staff the new system, said mayoral spokesman Marty McOmber.
"311 is not just a phone number; it's changing the way the city does business," he said. Currently, people have to search through more than a thousand different phone numbers for city services, but the 311 system would provide a single contact point, McOmber said.
The city receives around 10 million calls each year, but the city's response is uneven and disconnected, according to a press release from the mayor's office. "Oftentimes, there is no follow-up with customers to let them know the situation has been resolved," the press release adds, "or even that anyone is working on the issue."
The press release points to the city's response to citizen calls during and following the severe storms last December 14 as one reason to set up the new 311 system.
During that storm, around 1,500 calls were placed to a call center shared by Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) and City Light, and about 73 percent of those calls were dropped between 4 and 8 p.m., while most callers got a busy signal from 11 p.m. to midnight the following day, according to the mayor's office.
That was news to Darby DuComb, director of the city's Customer Service Bureau. "We were getting a ton of calls," she said, "but I'm not aware of anyone getting a busy signal."
Calls to SPU and City Light about flooding and power outages were just one issue the city faced last year. "The biggest problem we had was 911 was overwhelmed," DuComb said.
"A fair number of calls that went to 911 should have gone to other agencies or (the police department's) non-emergency number," agreed police spokesman Jeff Kappel.
Indeed, according to the mayor's press release, about 50 percent of the approximately 3,100 calls placed to 911 operators during the peak storm period were from people who called either asking about city services or reporting hazards that did not require immediate response from police or the Fire Department.
DuComb said the shared call center is normally staffed round the clock by 80 staff members and that the number was ramped up to 100 during the storm and afterward.
Forty people would staff the new 311-call center round the clock at an annual cost of approximately $4 million, said McComber, who added that he thought the extra 40 311-call takers would be able to handle the same level of calls seen during and after the storm last year.
DuComb from the Customer Service Bureau described the 311 system as being a gatekeeper for calls. "The goal is to resolve 80 percent of all complaints on first contact," she said. The remainder of the calls would be transferred elsewhere, DuComb added.
The calls could be transferred to other agencies or information from callers could be added to one database and the total amount of information could be transferred elsewhere at one time, McComber said.
Seattle City Council member Richard Conlin said last week that the 311 system sounds like a good idea, but he was dubious about the value of the proposal.
The shared utility call center is already huge, as is the 911-call center, Conlin said. "So it's not really clear what those benefits would be."
"It's considered critical infrastructure," police spokesman Kappel said of the 911 system. Therefore, he couldn't divulge the number of 911 operators who are on duty at any given time or how many might be added during emergencies, Kappel said.
A lot of people today don't know who to call in the city to get things done or have problems solved, McComber said. The 311 system would change that, he said.
There's also a precedent. A 311 system is already in place in around 50 other cities in the United States, McComber said. "What they've discovered is, 311 actually increases calls to city services."
