City: Teens weren't taking calls at HEC; Whoops, yes they were!
A little over a week ago, Mayor White reacted angrily to ads from a municipal employees labor union criticizing the City of Houston for allegedly employing low-paid teenagers as call-takers at the Houston Emergency Center. Here's an excerpt from a report by KHOU-11's Leigh Frillici at the time:
The commercial says this:
“Unfortunately, the City of Houston is using kids to answer your 911 calls.”
It’s a scary-sounding scenario. But is it true? Are teenagers really working at the emergency call center?
“I have talked to people who worked at the HEC Center, and yes … (teenagers) are there,” said Jere Talley, Senior HR Specialist with the City of Houston.
But the mayor is mad about the ad.
“There are high school students who are working as a part of the HEC Center, but they are not taking 911 emergency calls,” Mayor Bill White said.
Not so fast. As KRIV-26's Isiah Carey posted to his blog earlier, teenagers were indeed taking emergency calls at one point:
The man Mayor Bill White appointed to head Houston's Emergency Center apparently doesn't know who's answering calls at the city's 911 headquarters. It was Monday when David Cutler ... the director of HEC, maintained high school students never answered 911 emergency calls as part of a co-op program. This came after HOPE, the city workers union, ran radio ads making the claims. A former 911 center supervisor is heard in the commercial saying he supervised high school students who answered 911 calls. Those life or death type emergency calls. But Cutler in a video taped interview said it never happened. He said the union was misleading the public. Today, we find out Cutler was wrong. There were at least 4 teenagers - high school students - answering 911 emergency calls according to the Mayor's office. I asked spokesperson Joe Laud how could the head of HEC not know who's answering 911 calls. Laud didn't have an answer but told me they only learned of the student's actions after the tv interview with the Insite.
It sounds like some municipal communications specialists may have gotten ahead of the facts in their rapid response to the HOPE ads (dare we call them "talking points"), and wound up embarrassing their Mayor and themselves.
The Chronicle's L.M. Sixel has more about this issue here.
BLOGVERSATION: Off the Kuff.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/06/07 10:22 PM | Print | Comments (3)
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