Friday, August 20, 2010 Two days after San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood told the City Council that the department's new computer-aided dispatch system is “taking our city light-years ahead,” the union announced its widespread disappointment in the system, claiming technical complications endanger both firefighters and the public.
“I really think the citizens need to know the truth,” said District Chief Chris Steele, president of the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association, during a news conference Thursday afternoon. “I'm tired, and the firefighters are tired, of hearing it characterized as ... the best thing since sliced bread.”

At the top of Steele's list of complaints heard in executive board meetings is a litany of issues he says leads to a longer overall response time.

“In this industry, delay is death,” he said. “We have to get places within eight minutes, or we can't reverse brain damage.”

The response “is just totally off the wall,” said Steve Gaffigan, assistant director of the city's information technology department who worked side by side with SAFD personnel to implement the new system. It's “a slap in the face for people in the Fire Department who worked on this.”

Yvette Granato, the department's assistant chief of communications, said she didn't expect this response.

“My understanding is that we're addressing the complaints we get from the field,” she said. “If the union is getting information that I'm not, we need to know about it so that we can fix it.”

City officials say since the new system was implemented July 28, response times have gotten slightly shorter. Assistant City Manager Erik Walsh said it takes firefighters on average 4.57 minutes to get to an incident, compared with 4.72 minutes previously. A Fire Department spokeswoman said information on the average response time under the new system was not immediately available.

But Steele said the new system is causing a delay before calls are dispatched because call takers must ask callers a set of questions before calls can be dispatched by a computerized voice. He said that adds to the time it takes for firefighters to even get the call.

Administrators say the increased information allows responding firefighters to be more prepared and to better prioritize calls.