L.A.'S POTHOLE HANG-UP REPORT BLASTS STREET REPAIR BUREAU'S COMPLAINT HANDLING.

Byline: Alexa Haussler Staff Writer

Los Angeles residents routinely encounter a rough road - hang-ups, long waits and indifference - when they call a telephone hotline to report potholes to the city, according to a biting audit released Wednesday.

Nearly one-fifth of callers got disconnected, others were put on hold for up to 45 minutes and about one-third of the time the operator neglected to ask for all the information the city needed to do the repair job, according to the audit conducted by City Controller Rick Tuttle's Office.

``The lack of management attention to customer service needs to be remedied,'' wrote the report's authors, who sharply criticized the city Street Services Bureau for failing to cooperate with the auditors.

``The Office of the Controller ranks the cooperation given to its audit team by Bureau management to be the worst experienced during the Director of Auditing's last nine years of conducting independent audits of City agencies.''

Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association, said the audit's findings reflect widespread community complaints.

``If they can't do something as simple as take complaints, no wonder the streets don't get fixed, the sidewalks don't get fixed,'' said Close, who also is chairman of Valley VOTE, the organization that pushed for a study of the feasibility of a Valley city apart from Los Angeles.

``No wonder people are clamoring for their own local city.''

Street Services General Manager Greg Scott defended the program and challenged the audit's findings.

``I still believe there are inaccuracies there,'' Scott said.

He said the audit was conducted when the bureau's call center was short four of its 12 workers - one of whom was in the hospital while others had been promoted.

Scott also said members of the bureau felt the auditors changed the focus of the audit several times and even seemed to have personal vendettas against some of his workers.

``We had some issues with the auditors. We met with them; I thought we cleared them up, but it's obvious in their report that's not true,'' he said.

The auditors found 25 potholes across the city and called to report them between June 21 and 29. The report criticized the results in three key areas: excessive disconnected calls, excessive time on hold and operators' failure to collect the proper information.

The reports states that auditors waited on hold between 1 and 45 minutes - with an average 12.5 minutes - to speak with an operator.

More than three-quarters of the time, the callers waited more than five minutes, the report said.

Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Association, called it unacceptable for callers to be put on hold for so long, which he said could discourage the public from reporting potholes.

``Once somebody waits 12.5 minutes, they probably will never call in again,'' Schultz said.

The audit also stated that callers who waited more than 12 minutes often heard a recorded message promising the hold time to be three to five minutes.

``A canned answer with no basis in reality is a poor substitute for good customer information,'' the report said.

The second area highlighted in the report - disconnected calls - included the auditors' finding that 18 percent of calls were dropped.

``The general public . . . may not be willing to repeatedly call to get a street repair made,'' the auditors warned. ``They may resign themselves to believing that their government is unresponsive.''

Finally, the audit found that one-third of the callers who got through were not asked all of the information required by the Street Services Department - such as the telephone number or area code of the caller - to patch a pothole.

``They need to pay attention and monitor themselves more closely,'' said Louise Lund, administrative deputy city controller.

The hotline, (800) 996-CITY, or 996-2489, is designed to request service from the Bureau of Street Services. The bureau receives about 100,000 requests for services a year. Scott said the bureau makes about 200,000 small asphalt repairs, including potholes, each year.