The City of Dallas not only must build and maintain streets, but we must also build and maintain our part of the Information Highway. These days, it seems that we are driving in the fast lane.
Just as Dallas police can be found on the streets in our neighborhoods, they also patrol the Information Highway. In fact, the police department’s relatively new site on the Internet has become popular and recognized by industry experts as among the best in the country. The police department’s Web page address is: http://www.airmail.net/dpd/.
Created last October, the home page has had more than 22,000 visits, or about 112 per day. At the current rate, the police expect more than 43,000 visitors to their Web site.
Wired magazine, which covers technology and its influence on society, gave our police department’s Web site a good review. The reviewer said: most law enforcement sites are “at best sources of raw material for cobbled-together desktop patterns of the country’s 10 most wanted. Not the DPD’s. These cowboy cops got it going on. This page is well-designed – official yet appealing – and the content is the best example I’ve seen of a virtual community policing effort.”
What’s on the page? Lots of information – not just crime statistics.
There is much information about recruiting, such as hiring requirements, salary scales, benefits and career opportunities. Citizens can find a directory of addresses and phone numbers for the department to make locating and communicating with a particular police unit more convenient.
Forms are on-line to commend an officer or complain about one. There is also a summary of the police budget and a breakdown of the department’s staffing.
More information is contained in news releases that are posted on the home page, and those who visit the site can also read a weekly “Top Cops” profile on an outstanding police department employee. Crime prevention information is also available on nearly a dozen topics from gangs to home security.
The City Council is dealing with technology on another front, as well. The next generation of cellular communications is here.
PCS, or personal communications services, will soon be offered in Dallas by two companies that won federal government auctions for the microwave frequencies on which they will operate. PCS is a wireless technology that is projected to offer better quality, lower-cost communications than current cellular phones.
The Federal Communications Commission sold the Dallas-area frequency to two companies for $176 million. The frequency sold is the one that carries all City of Dallas radio communications (including fire and police traffic), and we must replace our microwave system as a result. FCC rules require that the private companies pay the entire cost of moving the City’s communications system off the PCS frequency.
This is something of a windfall for Dallas. Our communication system was becoming dated and inefficient with age. Over the next few months, the private companies will build a new microwave system for the City at a cost of about $4.7 million. Not only will new equipment be installed, thus lowering our annual maintenance cost, but the system will be expanded to give better communications to parts of the City.
While not very visible to the public, this new system is vital to providing superior fire and police protection. It is a classic win-win situation because two private companies may now proceed to build a PCS system that will offer competitive service, and the City will own a more valuable asset at no cost. In addition, the companies have brought hundreds of new jobs to our City.
Finally, the long-awaited new computer automation at the Dallas Public Library is about complete. The main library and all branches will have much more powerful computer systems that will provide new services, such as: access to other libraries’ catalogs, enhance reference databases, a national telephone directory database of 11 million telephone numbers, on-line index to many popular publications, and many other features.