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311 Short Circuits Community Boards

By HEATHER HADDON

The phones have gotten quieter at the Bedford Park office of Community Board 7 and District Manager Rita Kessler isn't happy about it. Since the advent of 311 -- Mayor Bloomberg's signature quality-of-life hotline -- Kessler has found she no longer gets return calls from officials at city agencies and her calls are being rerouted to 311. Community residents are also being encouraged to call 311 rather than the boards. 

Kessler considers this a direct threat to the boards' power, and to the residents she serves.

"[The change] is something I can't tolerate," she said. "This is taking away our personal relationships with our constituencies."

Officially launched last March, 311 consolidated the 41 call centers at various city 
agencies into one location. About 200 live operators field the calls 24 hours a day, and in 170 languages. Complaints are documented and then forwarded to the appropriate agency. As of this summer, noise and housing issues were the top two problems logged at 311 (officially called the 311 Citizen Service Management System).

But grievances like these are exactly the ones Kessler has spent 12 years handling as district manager. "311 eliminates our function to handle complaints, along with everything else," she said.

Established in 1975, the city's 59 boards (each including up to 50 unsalaried members) help plan and review land use in the community, and make recommendations on the city's budget. But often, it is their function as clearinghouses for community complaints that are best known. Typically, district managers call a staffer at the appropriate city agency to get a resident's concern addressed expediently. 

"Our affiliations with city commissioners keep the community protected," Kessler said.

In a letter addressed to Bloomberg this month, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum agreed. "An overly centralized government does not serve the individual constituent," she said. "An effective complaint process at the local level is vital."

Kessler says she has experienced nothing but a runaround since 311 launched. Recently, she called the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to alert them about dirty exhaust from a chimney. She was told to call 311. After giving the chimney's address to 311, Kessler was transferred to 911. As 911 didn't consider the complaint a significant emergency, she was switched to the Fire Department, which asked where the fire was.

"I hung up on all of them," Kessler said.

She has since lodged a complaint of her own with the Department of Information 
Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT), which oversees 311. Kessler considers the rerouting a direct violation of the City Charter, which mandated boards and their duties. "To eliminate that is a disgrace," she said. 

It also means that Kessler has less of a grasp on local concerns. Since the hotline began, there have been fewer calls to her office. And though 311's ability to keep centralized complaint statistics is championed as an asset, it does not help Kessler at the local level. "We don't know what problem constituents are calling them with," she said.

Buoyed by Gotbaum's criticisms, community boards around the city have been voicing alarm. Kessler said she intended to put forward a motion against the changes at the Board meeting this week. 

While the Mayor's office did not return calls for comment, DoITT Commissioner Gino Menchini stated in other reports that the concerns were based on misperceptions. Menchini reassured the boards that they will be more fully integrated into the system -- through direct access to 311 -- in the near future.

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