Dispatchers

The Crescenta Valley Sheriff?s Station recognized April 13 to 19 as National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. ?We are honoring those that work as dispatchers,? said Capt. David Silversparre. ?It is very important that we recognize what they do.? Dispatchers are many times the focal point between the deputies on the street and those who call the station for help. When someone in La Cañada, La Crescenta and the unincorporated area of Montrose dials 911 they will be connected to a dispatcher at the CV station.

SOUTHWEST GLENDALE — With the flip of a switch at noon Monday, the 11 cities that have their 911 calls fielded through the Verdugo Fire Communications Center in Glendale opened an expanded network to coordinate emergency response in a 126-square-mile area. The new digital configuration enables dispatchers to interact seamlessly between 40 fire stations, including stations in Burbank, Pasadena, Arcadia, Monrovia and Monterey Park, said Don Wise, fire communications administration supervisor for the Glendale Fire Department.

CENTRAL GLENDALE — Fire Communication Supervisor Jessica Latta doesn’t consider dispatching a job. She says she was born to do it. Latta and 15 other dispatchers spend most days behind several computer monitors in the Verdugo Communications Center answering emergency calls from residents of a dozen cities. “To me, it’s second nature now,” Latta said. “I just really love the job. I don’t seen any negatives to it at all.” She tries not to take her work home with her, but some gruesome calls, such as suicides, get to her, Latta said.

GLENDALE ? Verdugo Fire Communications Center, which serves 12 area cities, answered 99.1% of incoming emergency calls last year within 10 seconds, far exceeding statewide standards, officials said. The findings came as part of a review by the California 9-1-1 Emergency Communications Office of the center?s state-funded operations and equipment. The state requires 90% of emergency calls be answered within 10 seconds. ?Our people are the types who don?t like to hear the phones ringing,?

GLENDALE — More residents are abandoning their land lines for cell phones, a trend that public safety officials say is challenging how they respond to emergency calls. Of the 9,697 emergency calls in November received at Verdugo Fire Communications Center for fire and paramedic services, 31.5% were from cell phones, according to the Glendale Fire Department. Residential land lines made up 43.1%. The growing number of cellular calls has made responding to emergencies more challenging, said Don Wise, interim fire communications administrator for the center.

Two hikers were rescued by helicopter Sunday night after reporting they got lost while trekking the Verdugo Mountains, police said. They called emergency dispatchers for help, but the calls kept disconnecting, police said. A helicopter was dispatched about 11 p.m. to the area to look for the hikers, who were severely dehydrated. The helicopter crew spotted a glow from a flashlight at 3,000 feet and flew to the mountain ridge, where they found the hikers, police said.

Jackson Bell A frantic man called police looking for his suicidal wife, who had called him from an undisclosed hotel room off the Santa Monica (10) Freeway. Dispatcher Mary Gonzalez took the call. Gonzalez tracked down the hotel through the bank card his wife used to pay for the call, and then found her. "The woman had taken a lot of pills, and we were able to get her medical help," Gonzalez said. "From nothing, we were able to use our resources to help a woman out."

Lolita Harper SUNLAND -- More than 80 drivers from City Cab, Checkered Cab and Yellow Cab staged a job action late Friday outside their corporate offices, refusing to pick up fares to protest we they called unfair dispatching practices are giving advantages to People's Taxi. City Cab, People's Taxi and Checkered Cab and Yellow Cab (the latter two are under the umbrella of Tri City Cab Co.) are all owned and run independently. But drivers working routes in the Burbank and Glendale areas have claimed dispatchers have shuttled their calls to People's Taxi.

Darleene Barrientos Five hours of intense work fielding calls from phones that didn't stop ringing and hearing gunshots fired at friends might have been just another day on the job for five Glendale Community Service Officer-Dispatchers, but they are still being honored for their efforts. Those five hours happened May 29, when 47-year-old Jorge Beeton, who was later found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, began to shoot through the walls of his second story apartment at 400 Paula Ave. Lisa Stevenson took the first call at 11:10 a.m. from the building's handyman, and stayed on the phone with him throughout the ordeal.

Gretchen Hoffman GLENDALE -- More than 40 years ago, Joel Markss' friends had a conversation that had a powerful impact on firefighting. "There was a group of guys I ran around with, and we were talking about what we were going to do with our lives," said Markss, a battalion chief for the Glendale Fire Department. "One friend started talking about being a firefighter, and the next thing you know, all six of us ended up in a fire department someplace."

LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE - It took three and half hours longer than expected, but for the Flintridge Prep boys' water polo team, Wednesday evening's CIF Southern Section playoff win was worth the wait. The host Rebels, who were informed a few hours before the start of their Division V playoff match versus Whittier High that their pool was inadequately sized, made Burbank High their home in winning 12-7. With the triumph, the Prep League runner-up Rebels (17-8), the fourth seed, earned advancement to Saturday's divisional quarterfinal at Inland Valley League champion Riverside Poly (17-10)

PASADENA - With the Maranatha High boys' tennis team potentially in position to play two playoff matches in as many days, it embraced the challenge. The Minutemen entered the CIF Southern Section Division V playoffs fresh off finishing second in the Olympic League and with several players performing well in the league tournament last week. More importantly, they appeared to be well conditioned. Maranatha used its physical preparation as an advantage en route to a convincing 13-5 win against visiting Nogales in a wild-card match at Muir High.

LA CRESCENTA - It was all hands on the pool deck for the Crescenta Valley High boys' swimming team for Wednesday afternoon's Pacific League home dual-meet finale against Arcadia. While the trio of Young Tae Seo, Harrison Thai and Louis Wojciechowski are widely expected to lead the Falcons to contention for a CIF Southern Section Division II title in May, seeing all three competing simultaneously at a regular-season meet has been a rarity. All of them put aside club swimming, training and other commitments to give Crescenta Valley a full-strength attack that showed in a 117.5-52.5 win that clinched at least a share of the Falcons' 20th straight league crown.

SOUTHEAST GLENDALE - Once Ashley Aquino got to around the 20-yard line, she liked her chances to score. What the Glendale High girls soccer player needed was a perfect shot. She got it and helped Glendale get the best of its cross-town rival in the first of two head-to-head meetings. Aquino scored in the 30th minute to spark host Glendale to a 2-0 victory against Hoover on Friday afternoon in a Pacific League match. Aquino, a senior midfielder, corralled a loose ball and dribbled up to about the 20-yard line and lofted a shot past the outstretched arms of Hoover goalkeeper Yvonne Cruz.

With the switch of a color-coded light, Glendale firefighters will now get a jump start on emergency calls before leaving the station. The new system, installed in Glendale fire stations at the end of November, sends out a digitalized voice message and signals with a color-coded light, alerting specific fire personnel to the type of equipment needed to respond to a particular emergency, officials said. “The bottom line goal is to get the folks out the door quicker,” said Don Wise, the Verdugo Fire Communications Center's executive administrator.

Realtors call it the “popular tri-city area,” a region that proudly boasts its own “tri-city airport” and fundamentally healthy economies. The FBI likes the moniker so much it dubbed a robber who hit 10 banks in Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena this summer the “Tri-Cities Bandit.” In these tough economic times with no end in sight, government officials of the three cities, which have a combined population of nearly 450,000 - big enough...

A Los Angeles County sheriff's dispatcher's quick thinking and calm demeanor saved a woman and her small child after their car accelerator jammed as they headed toward an intersection. Dispatcher Richard Engersbach was working the day shift Monday morning at the Crescenta Valley station when he received the call from a woman desperate because the accelerator on her Ford Escort was stuck. Continue reading > > ALSO: Sheriff's deputy maneuvers to stop runaway car in La Crescenta -- Sam Quinones, Los Angeles Times

LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE — Following Flintridge Prep's loss to Pasadena Poly in Prep League play on April 26, Rebels Coach Sean Beattie voiced confidence in his team to do what needed to be done — win the final two matches of the season and get into the playoffs. "We should get in," Beattie had said after losing to the Panthers in five games. "We've swept the other two teams [Webb and Rio Hondo Prep] this season, but you never know. " Fast forward two weeks, when the Rebels went into the season finale against Rio Hondo Prep with another must win situation after sweeping Webb just three days prior.

LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE —Funny what the smallest of adjustments can do. Flintridge Prep's Kimberly Kim had missed all six of her three-point attempts in the first half of the Rebels' Prep League girls' basketball game with Mayfield and went into halftime scoreless. At halftime, Rebels Coach Todd Frost knew why his shooter was struggling. "I had Kimberly on the wrong side," said Frost after the 34-24 home victory over the Cubs. "Once I put her on the right side, she started hitting her shots.

GLENDALE — A successful amateur standout in Armenia, local lightweight boxer Artur "The Punisher" Bernetsyan has spent 2010 learning the ropes of the professional fight game stateside. According to his trainer Edmond Tarverdyan, proprietor of the Glendale Fighting Club, Bernetsyan has grown as a pro with each of his six bouts this year, including Thursday night's unanimous decision win over Demetrio Soto at the Irvine Marriott hotel. "The training over there [in Armenia]