Phase II of 311 service available to residents Jan. 1

Only the fourth city in Tennessee to provide the service, Dyersburg took its place alongside Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville/Davidson County and became the first city in West Tennessee to adopt the 311 calling number.

The service connects Dyersburg residents to city personnel for non-emergency situations, saves valuable time for 911 operators and offers citizens a direct line to city departments.

"Three-one-one will provide our citizens one number to call for government service or to obtain information," said Dyersburg Mayor John Holden. "This service will enable us to track customer requests and provide feedback allowing increased accountability for services provided."

"Three-one-one is a national non-emergency number established under Clinton's last administration," said Emergency Operations Manager Mark Grant when the first phase was initiated last year. "It's meant to complement 911. In the last four or five years, larger metropolitan areas have implemented it to connect to all government services so you don't have to remember all the different department numbers."

Phase I of the service, put into service in Dyersburg in November 2008, is used for non-emergency requests for police, fire and emergency medical services within the city. Residents who wish to talk to emergency responders in non-crisis situations may dial 311 without the risk of keeping dispatchers from residents in need.

Phase II will provide direct access to city departments and services. Beginning Jan. 1, residents will be able to use the 311 service to contact the police, fire or EMS services for non-emergency situations; notify the city concerning missed garbage pickup, missing street signs, potholes, problems with traffic lights and water leaks; or to ask questions about how to pay their water bill or property taxes.

At the last city board meeting, Emergency Operations Manager Mark Grant provided aldermen with an update on the program.

"Through the 311 service, we have a vision to provide top-notch service to the public," said Grant. "When residents dial 311, they will talk to a live person in our call center. Our operator will take their complaint. We already handle all those Public Works calls after hours anyway."

Grant said the 285-1212 number has been troublesome for the city and the Emergency Operations Center for many years because the service is unable to track where calls originate.

"People find that out and that's where we get some prank calls," said Grant. "Also, if we get a suicidal call at 1212, we can't track it. We can't find the person."

Grant said residents calling 311 may not use caller ID blocking.

"They will have to turn off blocking to connect to the system," said Grant. "It will work with cell phones. We've tested it with all the networks. It seems to be working well, (however,) it won't work with CableOne, Magic Jack, or Internet cell phones."

The 311 number will be included in the upcoming phone book and Grant said a short recording will remain on the 285-1212 line directing residents to call 311 during the transition.

Alderman Lewis Norman said that he would like to see the service extended to include calls for Dyersburg Electric System.

Grant said the call center already receives calls for DES and provides the proper number for residents with power outages, but including DES in the 311 system would be up to DES President and CEO Jimmy Williamson.

Williamson, who was present at the board meeting for another matter, said DES would not be interested in anything that would cost money because their current system works well and is relatively inexpensive. He also said electric repair is very specialized and his operators are trained specifically on who to call for what kind of problem.

Norman said he would still like to see 311 be all-inclusive in Dyersburg and include the electric system.

Preparations for implementing Phase III of the 311 system will begin as soon as Phase II is complete.

"Phase III of that system will provide total accountability to you guys," said Grant to the board members at the meeting. "Residents will be able to go on the Internet and create their own trouble ticket. We will be able to track that ticket and it will automatically send an e-mail or call to the resident who created the ticket when the issue is resolved. It will give total accountability to all city departments to see how long it takes to resolve the problem and how many man-hours are used."

Grant also said the system will become paperless in the future.

"At some point, workers in the field will actually have a tablet like you see the UPS man with and we will, hopefully, be able to go to a paperless system."

Holden asked Grant how many calls the EOC currently receives per year.

"We take 140,000 telephone calls per year," said Grant. "Only 10,000 of those calls are 911 calls."

The 311 system will not cause the EOC to employ additional personnel at this time, but Grant said as the 311 system becomes commonplace, it may require another operator to help field calls.