Santa Ana PD Profile - Con't

COORDINATOR COMMENTS

Comments: Santa Ana, the largest city participating in Model States, did not use the FAAP software; however, their police department started using the Tiburon Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system during 1998 and they were able to begin generating their own tracking and billing procedures. This allowed them to start identifying & contacting their "worst offenders" and to get excessive false dispatch billings out in a timely manner.

While participating in the Model States Program, the police department designed a new and improved alarm user permit and sent it out to 13,500 potential alarm users. (Their existing alarm ordinance included a registration process but they had not issued any permit numbers.) By September of 1998, the letters were generating 30-40 phone calls a day, 1,200 new permits had been sent in, and more were arriving daily. They then merged their database on Access with the 4,500 permit numbers that they generated using the new CAD system, thereby identifying duplications. The process was tedious, however their efforts were effective in identifying alarm users.

They promoted the permit process as a means of registration that would help in reducing the number of false dispatches received by their department. I also made available to them the California alarm dealer’s ASCII file for ease in generating mailing labels. The California Alarm Association agreed to publicize the permit process in the "Mirror" and local alarm associations promoted this at their local meetings.

One unusual situation occurred in this city – they have a ‘confidentiality issue’ when it comes to the release of any information regarding alarms or alarm activity. The way around this was to have the police department take care of its own alarm data, including the excessive accounts. They report that they are receiving excellent cooperation from the alarm companies doing business within their jurisdiction.

They had an increase of 6% in false alarm dispatches during 1998; however they are down 19% since 1995.

The tracking of actual false dispatches has improved this past year as well as their ability to begin linking specific addresses to a unique permit number so as to accurately accumulate the data. Ordinance changes were not necessary – most of our efforts were accomplished through policy changes with stricter enforcement of their existing ordinance.