Police Aide Flap Invoked to Reject Dispatch Trainees

A proposed ordinance establishing a trainee position for police dispatchers drew fire Monday from Council President Bridget Rivers based on what she described as unfair treatment to police aides.

Rivers said she received "phone calls after phone calls after phone calls" from police aides who took training for almost a year and were now out of a job because outsiders scored higher on a Civil Service exam for the job.

"The city has wasted a lot of money," she said, suggesting the police dispatcher trainees might meet a similar fate.

Councilwoman Gloria Taylor said she also received phone calls regarding "inequities or the perception of inequities" in the police aide situation. Rivers said the aides had planned to attend Monday's agenda-fixing session, but she "begged them not to come."

Taylor made additional lengthy comments about "glaring inequities," but City Administrator Rick Smiley said one situation would not preclude looking into the other.

Police Director Carl Riley summed up the need for the trainee titles by calling it "real simple."

"Everyone said they wanted officers out in the street," he said, but now he has two officers assigned full-time to dispatch. Based on the city's population shift to 40 percent Hispanic, he also needs bilingual dispatchers, he said.

Riley said the city uses a Language Line translation service, but it takes time to relay calls for translation and get responses.

"We need somebody to speak Spanish," he said.

The trainees would start at a pay rate much lower than that of a police officer and after a year would be promoted to the title of "telecommunicator." In a memo on the proposal, Personnel Director Karen Dabney said public safety telecommunicators were required to have one year of experience in all aspects of emergency dispatch.

Rivers said at one point that she had a conflict on the police aide matter in which someone from the outside scored higher on the test, but Riley said the aides were not yet off the list and nobody had been released.

Taylor again raised a concern about "preferential treatment."

City Clerk Abubakar Jalloh reminded the council that the ordinance was up for second reading and a public hearing had been advertised. The ordinance required tabling at the Aug. 17 meeting, he said.

Councilman Cory Storch said the council was in a difficult position, as they were hearing from Riley that police are needed in the street, while others raised an issue of fairness. He said he did not receive any calls about the issue and he was in favor of moving it to the agenda. But as Rivers and Riley went back and forth over the facts, she said, "Let's be clear - this council is about public safety. We have to tell the whole story."

"I think the issue just got confused," Storch said, "Words were put in my mouth."

Finally, Brown said the council will move to table the ordinance on Aug. 17

Two other new titles in the ordinance were not even mentioned at all Monday. Both were related to the federal Women, Infants & Children nutrition program. One title was peer counselor and the other was lactation counselor. The jobs were needed as a result of the WIC grant audit finding, Dabney said in a memo. The jobs would be funded by federal grants. Unless the public safety and WIC titles are somehow bifurcated, it seems a council rejection would affect all four titles.

--Bernice