PPOA Executive Director
wquint@ppoa.com
National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week (NPSTW) is held annually during the second week of April as the designated time period for the entire public safety community in Los Angeles County and around the country to honor and express our thanks and appreciation for our public safety telecommunicators. The idea for the weeklong event originated in 1981 with longtime dispatcher Patricia Anderson of the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office here in California. The 102nd United States Congress first introduced NPSTW in 1991, and in 1994, President Clinton signed Presidential Proclamation 6667 declaring the second week of April as NPSTW (see tinyurl.com/2vercadh).
On April 13, 2023, I was honored to join PPOA President Nancy Escobedo as we proudly attended a ceremony at the Sheriff’s Communication Center (SCC) celebrating PPOA member and Public Response Dispatcher (PRD II) Briana Davila. The ceremony included a presentation from Sheriff Luna, who presented this year’s Public Response Dispatcher of the Year award to PRD Davila. This prestigious award is especially significant as the annual recipient is selected by their fellow PRDs.
In addition to our SCC dispatchers, PPOA equally acknowledges and honors our Law Enforcement Technicians (LETs) Desk Operations’ telecommunicators. Our LETs, dispatchers and desk personnel are spread throughout the county, providing telecommunication services at 23 patrol stations, Transit Services Bureau and County Services Bureau. On the morning of April 13, Sheriff Luna broadcasted a message from the SCC thanking our LETs and PRDs, whom he recognized as “the unsung heroes behind the scenes” and “the calm during the storm.”
It goes without saying that until a community member or deputy sheriff is on the other end of the phone or radio during their darkest moment, the true realization of how much our telecommunicators’ calm and empathetic professionalism can lessen their immense levels of fear and stress. Our LETs and PRD telecommunicators are truly the lifeline between someone who needs help and those who respond to give it.
In September of 2020, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 1945, introduced by Assemblymember Rudy Salas (D-32), which passed the Legislature with unanimous, bipartisan support in August 2020. AB 1945 amended the California Emergency Services Act (CESA) to add a formal definition of “first responder” for purposes of this law and includes public safety dispatchers and telecommunicators in that definition. The bill defines a “first responder” as an employee of the state or a local public agency who provides emergency response services, including a peace officer, firefighter, paramedic, emergency medical technician, public safety dispatcher or public safety telecommunicator.
AB 1945 contains the following legislative language, “‘A public safety dispatcher or public safety telecommunicator’ means an individual employed by a public safety agency, as the initial first responder (my emphasis), whose primary responsibility is to receive, process, transmit or dispatch emergency and non-emergency calls for law enforcement, fire, emergency medical and other public safety services by telephone, radio or other communication devices, and includes an individual who promotes from this position and supervises individuals who perform these functions.” PPOA strongly supported this first responder reclassification of our LETs and PRDs who are assigned to telecommunicator duties. The idea for this bill was brought to Assemblymember Salas by a local dispatcher from Kings County, Maribel Stinson, who emailed him directly suggesting the legislation.
The Sheriff must seriously examine the compensation packages that are presently being offered to our first responder telecommunicators. Recruitment and retention are no longer exclusive to peace officers as evident by the California Highway Patrol, which is currently looking to hire 200 public safety dispatchers and operators.
PPOA once again salutes and thanks our LETs and PRDs who serve our communities, residents and public safety personnel 24 hours a day, seven days a week.