The San Jose City Council discussed how to improve internal communications for handling residents’ non-emergency issues during Tuesday’s Zoom meeting.
Even though residents can call the city’s 311 phone line or download the San Jose 311 app to submit non-emergency service requests, councilmembers said the city has been receiving an influx of 311-related calls. These calls are operated and funded by San Jose Police Communications, which is part of the Bureau of Administration in the San Jose Police Department.
Non-emergency service requests include reporting things like abandoned vehicles, graffiti, illegal dumping and streetlight outages, according to the San Jose City 311 website.
According to the San Jose Police Communications website, when SJPD gets a 311 call, it will determine whether it is a job for the police or for another department within the city.
If it is for the city, it’s forwarded to city services to review and resolve.
Councilmember Pam Foley said in the city council meeting that the District 9 office is getting multiple direct calls a day regarding vehicle abatement, which are cars or motor homes that have been abandoned, unregistered, inoperative or permanently parked on public roads.
“This is a frustration [for residents],” Foley said. “They’re home, watching [an abandoned] car sitting out in front of the house, it's been there from a week and no one’s removing it.”
Foley said residents told the District 9 office that when they put a request on the 311 app, they didn’t get a response back from the San Jose Department of Transportation for weeks.
Deputy City Manager Jim Ortbal, who oversees the transportation department, said in the meeting that San Jose’s General Purpose Parking Fund pays the staff in the transportation department’s non-essential services, including vehicle abatement.
He said the fund’s revenue comes from San Jose street parking meters and parking garages. Ortbal said that when shelter-in-place mandates were enacted in March, the department stopped collecting the funds and couldn't afford to pay the department’s staff members.
Heather Hoshii, division manager for San Jose Parking and Downtown Operations, said the transportation department had a staff who would supervise and sort the 311 requests to their appropriate department. She said the staff was relocated to work in the Office of Emergency Management until January 2021.
John Ristow, director of the department of transportation, said in the meeting that the department will work with the city management team to improve the efficiency of the 311 app.
“I’m getting comments from residents like, ‘You’re hiding behind COVID and not doing [the 311] anymore,’ ” councilmember Dev Davis said. “There is a sense of wanting to return to normal and wanting our services to return to normal and that not happening as quickly as reopenings are happening.”
Davis said the District 6 office and councilmember Johnny Khamis’s District 10 office were also getting non-emergency requests.
“We’re spending millions of dollars on that 311 system, I know we are,” Khamis said. “If it’s not going to work, why spend the money on it?”
