KOJO NNAMDIWelcome back. What kinds of services do you think dialing 311 should cover for you? 311 is the number you call in DC to request city information and basic services like scheduling a bulk trash pickup or pointing out potholes. It will soon expand to include repairs of DC public schools and local parks. Plus, DC's 911 is integrating new technology to better pinpoint your location in an emergency. Joining us now by phone to talk about both systems is DC's Office of Unified Communications Director, Karima Holmes. Karima, thank you so much for joining us.

KARIMA HOLMESThank you. Thank you for having me, Kojo.

NNAMDIFirst, let's make sure we're on the same page about DC's 311 system, because I'm sure people mix it up all the time. What requests does 311 currently handle, and what does it not handle?

HOLMESSure. So, 311 is the support call system for non-emergencies, city services and in-general District information. The calls that 311 does not handle would be any type of emergency and any type of calls that require an agency to respond directly for specific things. We have about 17 agencies that we cover in the District, so, as you said earlier, in the intro, we take care of bulk collection, missed trash, potholes, graffiti. All of that comes through 311.

NNAMDIWhy, then, broaden the 311 services to include DCPS, DC Public Schools, and DC Parks and Recreation? What needs were you seeing at those sites?

HOLMESSure. So, I think that the needs that we saw was that sometimes, we have parents and visitors at DPR and DCPS that would see any type of maintenance issues or anything that are on the ground, the playground. And it's easier for you just to pick up the phone and call 311 instead of looking for a maintenance worker or someone on the grounds. And especially after hours, you know. If you're out at the park on the weekend, things like that, you could just pick up the phone and call 311.

HOLMESI think one of the other reasons that it has been expanding is 311 has become very popular, which is what we want. Out of OUC, we take about three-and-a-half million calls a year for service, between 911 and 311. And 311 takes the bulk of those calls. We almost received two million calls last year, just for 311. So, we know the citizens are using it. We have improved our call times. Our call handle times have gone down, and so what better way for you to be able to report something at your child's school, or you're out at a park, then to pick up and call 311?

NNAMDIKarima Holmes, so if I'm walking around in the park and I see something that needs repair or I happen to be in a DC public school and I see the same thing, how will putting in the request for service at those institutions actually work?

HOLMESSo, if you're at a park -- and let me put this out there. This starts early summer, so we're in the workings of it now. We started this fiscal year getting everything planned out for it. But if you're in a park, you see something, you pick up the phone and you call 311, we take it just like we take all 311 calls. Get the information in, our systems talk to our partner agencies, we put all the information in. You give us your email, we'll send you a confirmation number. Therefore, you can follow up, if you would like. And then the information goes over to DGS, which is our general services that handles maintenance for both DPR and DCPS.

NNAMDISo, what's the -- how's that different from what's happening now?

HOLMESSo, right now, the way the maintenance goes in is through an employee, or someone actually picks up the phone and calls the respective agency. And so that changes. It just allows another conduit. Those routes will still be there. We're just adding another way for citizens to call 311. And I think 311 is just easy to remember. I would like to add this, too. We get a lot of just general government information calls to 311, and so people are calling 311, anyway, just for information.

HOLMESAnd so what this is adding is just literally a service request. We're actually adding the process into 311. And so you're not calling 311 about a broken swing, where we're saying, okay, hold on. We have to get you to, you know, DCPS, or whatever. Our call takers are going to be putting the information in and feeding it through our system.

NNAMDIWhen did you say these changes will go into effect?

HOLMESWe're looking at early summer. We do not have a date yet, but we are closing in on the end. We've been working on this for a while now, not quite a year yet. So, we think that we will be ready to go live early summer.

NNAMDIA lot of people might not call 311, and may instead Tweet at their local councilmember about issues they see in their neighborhood. Is your office paying attention to messages like that, which won't necessarily come through your system?

HOLMESWe do pay attention. We have a social media team that stays on Twitter 24-7. We have our 311 individuals that pay attention to Twitter. And so you can also Tweet 311DC.gov. We also have an app. At 311DCbackup, you can download the app. But we also have a partnership with council, the executive branch, all of our agencies. So, if something gets tweeted out to them, we get re-tweeted, and our call-takers right then will take the information and shoot the confirmation number over Twitter.

NNAMDISo, you're saying that if I call my councilmember's constituent services officer and ask for something particular in my neighborhood, and that person says to me, hey, we're going to take care of it, we're going to get it done. All that person's really doing is calling 311?

HOLMESThey can (laugh). That is a way to do it. They email us...

NNAMDI(overlapping) By pretending to give me personal service? But go ahead (laugh).

HOLMESI mean, that is service. They're preventing you from doing it. I don't think any of the constituents literally go out there and fix anything, of course. But they do get in contact with the agency. But I think the options are still there. They can directly call DGS. They have that option. I get emails directly to me, and I get it done. Or they can Tweet us or call 311 direct.

NNAMDIWell, we've been talking so far about the non-emergency line, but what about 911? What changes have been made to that technology?

HOLMESSure. So, with 911, we have made two major changes in the last year. And one of those is the non-emergency number. I've been here about three years. This is the third 911 center I've been in, and one of the bigger issues that we ran into was there was not a number for non-emergencies. If you're just calling to get the police to come out or you need a case number for, you know, a missing wallet, that's not 311, but you actually, you know, need to make a report. We didn't have that.

HOLMESAnd so the 911 system brings in about one-and-a-half million calls, and we found that a quarter million of those calls are non-emergency. They need some type of response, but it's not dire. And so we've introduced a non-emergency number, and that number is 311. And so the very first prompt now when you call 311 is if you have a police non-emergency, press one. Once you press one, it goes over to a 911 call-taker, but they handle the call at a lower priority. This is very important, because those true 911 calls, those heart attacks, those accidents, they're coming in through the true 911 phone system, and so we can prioritize the call better.

HOLMESRight now, without the non -- or before, without the non-emergency number, we had no way of knowing what calls were coming in. We had no way of knowing the priority of calls coming in, rather. So, if three people call, two of them are in an accident and one of them is calling about, you know, (unintelligible), it just didn't matter. Whoever got the call in first come in. And so, now that you have the police non-emergency number through 311, we can handle those calls appropriately.

HOLMESAnd then, right quick, the other thing that we have launched recently in 911 is a partnership with a vendor that we've been using for years for location accuracy. And so, you know, you hear the story that has been a big plight across the country with 911: we don't know where you are, if you call from a cell phone. We're struggling. We ran some statistics across the states, and it takes almost 40 seconds for a call-taker to get a location for someone that don't know where they are.

NNAMDI(overlapping) Yeah, people want to know, if I order a pizza, and they can find my location, why doesn't that happen when I call 911?

HOLMESRight. Yeah, and that's just based on the new -- the system -- the old 911 center. I'll try and sum this up, real quick. The old 911 system was based in 1968. And so those calls were taken from landlines. Since cell phones, of course, blew up in the late '90s, 2000s, 911 systems could not take a wireless call and know where you are. Dominos and Pizza Hut know, because they're getting into by-space location. We're upgrading our system, and now we have location accuracy. So, what happens is when you call us, instead of us getting a cell phone tower location, we get the location of the cell phone itself.

NNAMDIThe company you're partnered with now to provide location services is used as an intermediary, until call centers can upgrade to wireless technology. Where's the District of Columbia on that?

HOLMESSo, that is called NextGen 911. It has been phased out at five phases. We are in phase four. I would also like to add that there's only about a quarter of the 6,000 911 centers that have even got started NextGen 911. So, I'm really proud of our progress. But, yes, this is just a temporary fix for now, because location is just that important. But working with the FCC and our telecomm industry, we will get there. That's part of NextGen 911, and it's not only the 911 centers that have to upgrade their systems, but also the carriers are working to provide that data, too.

NNAMDIIndeed. And Maryland State Senator Cheryl Kagan has just introduced legislation, so that Maryland can try to get location services for its 911 system. They are way behind the times. But before we go, here's Heather in Adams Morgan. Heather, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

HEATHERMy question concerns older adults reporting problems with scooters, the dangerous scooters on sidewalks. The DC Pedestrian Advisory Council recommended to DDOT director Jeff Marootian, among other things, that there'd be a specific, dedicated location in 311 to report the danger of scooters on sidewalks. And I'm wondering if this has come to your attention. There's been a lot of focus on injuries to scooter riders, but the problem also is people...

NNAMDI(overlapping) We're running out of time quickly, so allow me to have Karima Holmes respond. Has it come to your attention before, or is this the first time you're hearing about this?

HOLMESThis is the first time I'm hearing about it. It may just have not made it to me yet, but I do work with Jeff Marootian for different service requests that they need at DDOT. And so, if that is something that is needed, it definitely sounds like if there's not a threat to life at the time of the call, it comes through 311 and we can get that request over to DDOT. And, of course, if there's ever any threat to life or any type of arguments or assault or anything like that, it needs to go through our 911 system.

NNAMDIWhat about situations where people cannot call in the emergency over the phone, for Washingtonians who are deaf or who don't speak fluent English? What options do they have?

HOLMESSure. So, we have two options. The older option is we do have TTY and TDD systems set up in our telephone system now, in 911. And so those populations are pretty familiar with that. We have a relationship with Gallaudet University, and so they call in, and our systems recognize those systems, and we communicate that way. The second option, which was introduced in 2017, I think July of 2017, is text to 911.

NNAMDI(overlapping) Got about ten seconds.

HOLMESText to 911. You can now text to 911. So, for that population, it has become pretty popular, and we can communicate that way.

NNAMDIKarima Holmes is the director of the DC's Office of Unified Communications. Thank you so much for joining us.

HOLMESThank you, sir.

NNAMDIOur update on 311 and 911 was produced by Ruth Tam. Our conversation on rape investigations produced by Mark Gunnery. For my 20th year on WAMU, we've been popping up at a number of unexpected places in the Washington region. I recently visited DC's Superior Court. You can watch a video of how my day at the courthouse went at KojoShow.org/blog. Coming up tomorrow, it's your turn to discuss the news that matters to you. We're opening up the phones for anything you want to talk about, whether it's changes to DC's climate, controversial lower class for white people, or anything else, like how the region handled today's snowfall. That all starts tomorrow at noon. Until then, thank you for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.