DISPATCHING RELIEF 911 OPERATORS GET SOME ELBOW ROOM.

Byline: Ryan Oliver Staff Writer

WEST HILLS - Two hours after midnight, an LAPD emergency dispatcher raised her hand when a call came in and summoned a platoon of engineers and technicians to her console.

As the caller reported a possible home intruder, the group listened intently and took careful note of the information on the dispatcher's screen until she dispatched an officer.

The group breathed a collective sigh of relief, then burst into applause. Eleven years after voters approved its construction, the Los Angeles Police Department's new dispatch center in the San Fernando Valley had taken its first 911 call.

``It went without a hitch,'' LAPD Director of Systems Jeff Jantz said. ``Everyone clapped afterward. It was a big event. We were excited.''

That was on Sept. 23, and since then the $40 million dispatch center in West Hills has taken over police-dispatching duties for the entire San Fernando Valley. The department plans to add more operators and more coverage area - eventually including much of West Los Angeles - for the center before its official opening ceremonies, tentatively scheduled for December.

Operators are now answering more than 85 percent of the city's 911 calls within 10 seconds, but police are hoping to do better.

``Once we add additional personnel, our response time is going to improve,'' said Lt. Stan Ludwig, the officer in charge of the center. ``The goal is we never want to see any calls holding.''

The three-story, 59,000-square-foot building is designed to withstand power outages and an earthquake up to a magnitude 8.3. The entire structure rests on 54 base isolators that allow it to move two feet in any direction during a quake.

It is also an exact replica - right down to the room numbers - of the new dispatch center built downtown, which the department opened last year. Ludwig said that if one dispatch center is destroyed or disabled, the system is designed so the other can completely take over.

This became an important issue for the city after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. Policy-makers were forced to consider what would happen if the LAPD's sole call center were destroyed when needed most.

Marie Mardesich, an assistant watch commander, recently transferred from the downtown center to the West Hills facility. She recalls being in the LAPD's old dispatch center, housed in the basement of City Hall, during the Northridge Earthquake.

Operators fielded 3,000 calls in the 30 minutes immediately after the disaster.

``After we got everyone calmed down, we started calling off-duty dispatchers in,'' Mardesich said. ``It was great having everyone there, but we didn't have enough places to seat everyone.''

The Valley dispatch center alone has 84 consoles and three to four times the space of the city's old dispatch center. Twenty of those consoles are being used now and officials plan to increase that to 60 by Jan 1. The remaining consoles may be staffed but, in the meanwhile, can be used for training, and they could be spares during a major emergency.

Many of 120 employees who transferred to the Valley center live closer to their new workplace than to downtown. About 95 percent of the new center's employees live in the San Fernando Valley, Simi Valley, Ventura County and northern Los Angeles County.

Mardesich, a West Hills resident, enjoys spending less time commuting, and she also likes the convenient parking and quiet atmosphere.

``I was ready for a change after 22 years,'' she said. ``I love this environment. It's like coming to a new job. You can go outside and hear birds chirping.''

Both of the spacious new centers, sporting windows and ergonomic consoles, are a big improvement over the dank City Hall basement, she said. Desks can even be mechanically lifted and lowered, giving dispatchers the choice of sitting or standing.

The improvements have made a noticeable dent in the city's attrition rates for dispatchers, which is down to 16 percent. Previously, the stressful position - with an average of 200 calls a shift - was chasing about half the employees away each year.

City Councilman Dennis Zine said the Valley dispatch center is long overdue, having been approved by voters back in 1992 as part of a $260 million bond issue to enhance police communication.

``Years ago, we'd see bond measures pass, and they'd run out of money, and they wouldn't be able to build,'' Zine said. ``Now we're seeing things materializing.''

The dispatch center, in addition to the two new LAPD area divisions scheduled to open in the Valley in the next few years, are expected to bring substantial improvements. Department officials hope to shave three minutes off the current emergency response time of 10 minutes.

``The infrastructure that has been neglected for years, we're now catching up on. This will improve efficiency, and if you improve efficiency, you improve public safety,'' Zine said.

Ryan Oliver, [phone]

ryan.oliver(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) The Los Angeles Police Department's new Valley dispatch center is up and running before its formal opening later this year.

(2) Spacious new Valley center surroundings ease some of the tension for police dispatcher Celine Kingsland.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer