OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) – KRON4 learned Wednesday that major missteps kept hundreds of dispatching jobs unfilled in Oakland. A deep dive into the city’s hiring process revealed hundreds of applications were ignored for an entire year.
The Oakland City Council heard from the city’s human resource department on Tuesday. They say it was a human error.
People in Oakland have said for a while that they have not been able to get a hold of anyone when they call 911. A new report has revealed that from April 2022 to April 2023, the city’s HR department didn’t process any applications for 9-1-1 dispatchers.
“My office gets calls all the time, from constituents who are like ‘Who do we call in a moment of crisis?’” said Oakland city councilmember Janani Ramachandran.
An Alameda County Grand Jury report shows what many in Oakland already know. The city’s 911 center is slow to respond to requests for service.
Ramachandran decided to look deeper, requesting information from the city administrator’s office and filing a public records request to get the full picture of what was happening. On Tuesday, the information was presented to the city council.
“There was a human error, so we’re here tonight to take accountability for that,” said an Oakland human resource manager.
The manager presented the information, revealing that for a year, no applications were processed for 911 dispatchers. Ramachandran said she questioned the human resource manager’s office further about why this happened, and they continued to say it was a human error without giving further details.
“I was shocked,” she said. “I couldn’t believe that for an entire year, we had applicants who never heard back from the city. That’s 1,000 individuals who wanted to work for the City of Oakland under these roles that never had the opportunity to move forward.”
But she says many of the people involved with this error are no longer with the city, including the city administrator. But the new administrator wants to right the ship.
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“Yes, he is new to the role, but he is taking this very seriously and trying to troubleshoot some of these issues,” Ramachandran said.
She’s hopeful bringing this to light will lead to improved 9-1-1 response.
“We need to make sure every single one of those 20 vacant dispatcher roles are filled ASAP. I think that’s the number one priority,” Ramachandran said.
The councilmember says she’s also working on putting in place processes that will guarantee this will never happen again.
