CHICK SAYS LAPD GOOFED ON 911.

Byline: Erik N. Nelson Staff Writer

Los Angeles police have mismanaged the creation of two new 911 emergency call centers - one of them in West Hills - to the point where they may have wasted $11 million on a custom communications system that will be obsolete by the time it is installed, Councilwoman Laura Chick charged Sunday.

Chick lashed out at the Los Angeles Police Department in the wake of reports that 220,000 calls to 911 went unanswered last year and that working conditions in the call center at police headquarters downtown were so bad that police officers are routinely assigned to answer calls.

The problem surfaced Friday when, over Chick's opposition, the City Council approved paying TRW more than $5.3 million for a communications system at the call centers - one at former police headquarters and the other in West Hills.

``After $11 million was spent going in this direction, now we're being told that we need $5 million to go in that direction,'' Chick said at a news conference in front of the LAPD's West Valley station.

The problem is not that the department is changing course technologically, but that it first spent $11 million heading in a different and apparently wrong direction, she said.

Chick is pushing a measure she introduced six months ago calling for a top-to-bottom examination of the way the city manages its technology projects.

She said the city's Information Technology Agency doesn't have enough authority to deal with long-running technology problems, such as the 911 system, purchasing system and the city's payroll system.

``At the rate the city of Los Angeles is going, we are going to be so far behind the eight ball that we are not going to be able to communicate with the people we serve.''

Police spokesman Lt. Horace Frank said he could not directly address Chick's concerns Sunday because Roger Ham, who directs the department's technology programs, was not available.

But Frank said that, in general, ``we're not doing anything that is inconsistent with the directions that we're getting'' from the council.

``Even though we switched direction, the switch was certainly for the benefit of the community,'' Frank said. ``We switched according to the new technology, without its costing us more or its taking anymore time.''