The Daily Briefing

TOM HENNESSY ON MAYOR BOB FOSTER; 911 CELL PHONE CALLS REROUTED

Theo DouglasMon. September 08
 

In case you missed it, Sunday Press-Telegram columnist Tom Hennessy weighed in yesterday on keeping Main Library open, for what we believe is his first column on the topic.

We won’t keep you in suspense; he’s in favor of it.

The columnist recalls an event called Celebrate Reading Day, and writes, “… it is difficult for me to believe that marvelous event took place in the same city whose leaders now want to close the Main Library.”

He lays into Mayor Bob Foster, and City Manager Pat West, characterizing West as “a man I do not know,” and Foster as “a man I thought I knew.” Ouch!

Writes Hennessy:

“One of the first things I learned about Foster as he was running for office was that he loved to read books. That’s one reason I am having so much trouble understanding this current situation in which he and others seem to be pushing through a proposal loaded with unanswered questions.”

A lot of other people are having trouble with the mayor and the city manager’s library proposal too–including the more than 5,800 who have signed the Long Beach Public Library Foundation’s pro-library petition.

Hennessy also tackles the so-called “library reprieve,” which would keep Main Library open until a replacement satellite library can be found or built–at which point it would close to the public, and some new Main Library would be built, somewhere in Long Beach. Somewhere.

“While we can hope this turns out to be the case, the so-called ‘reprieve’ demonstrates that the proposal to close it was flawed in the first place,” Hennessy writes. “If the building was as unsafe as it was claimed when the proposal was made, are we to now believe it is safe - with no improvements having been made at all?”

Or, as others have suggested, perhaps Main Library was safe all along.

In other news, the Los Angeles Times points out that if you call 911 from a cell phone in Long Beach, your call doesn’t go to the Long Beach Police Department dispatcher–it goes to a California Highway Patrol call center “north of downtown Los Angeles.” Then, the CHP transfers your call back down here.

The Times, of course, winds up its pitch with a typically-Los Angeles look at Long Beach–down the nose, through a powerful, expensive telescope.

“Long Beach, the state’s fifth biggest city, with roughly 492,000 residents, promotes itself as a major draw for conventions, tourism and night life,” writes Times reporter Rich Connell, and thanks for calling us a “major draw.” That’s great.

“Recently,” Connell continues, “it has earned another, less-heralded distinction: It is the largest Southern California city not directly answering wireless 911 calls.”

“It’s a detour that can be risky when seconds matter, and one that the vast majority of cities in the state have eliminated in recent years.”

Turns out, money–or the lack of it–is at the root of this problem too.

“Patching 911 calls from cellphones through the CHP creates a bottleneck, Long Beach officials acknowledge,” Connell writes. “But they have balked at answering the calls directly, fearing the added workload could overwhelm city dispatchers, slow response times and exacerbate the city’s $17-million budget shortfall.”

“It’s going to happen eventually,” Mike Mawn, coordinator of the city’s police communications center, told the Times. “I just don’t know when.”

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