KHOU-11 has more details about the consulting firm that will be examining the Houston Emergency Center:
MITRE, an independent not-for-profit agency, is investigating the problems at the HEC.
The cost of this six-month assessment is about $180,000. Officials say the money will come from a yearly maintenance fee.
The city hopes that the company will be able to assess the systems, technologies and personnel at the HEC, then come up with a plan to fix the problems.
[snip]
MITRE says it has worked with other 911 systems and should be able to come up with a plan to help get Houston’s system in shape.
“I think the bulk of the work we are going to do will be in a three-month time period. We will conduct interviews, look at the system, do our assessment and make the appropriate suggestions and recommendations to try and make improvements as necessary, ” says Bobby Blount of MITRE.
City officials say while fixing the HEC is a priority, it’s too soon to tell how much money it will take to fix it, or how long the process will take.
Obviously we hope that the people of MITRE can come up with a way to salvage the system. That last paragraph, about how much it will cost, is problematic. The people who sold the city this system need to pay for any fixes, since the fine citizens of Houston have already shelled out $53 million for a system that doesn’t work the way it was promised. Last night, KRIV-26 had a report on this where the reporter quoted a city councilman saying the city would have to look into the developer paying to fix whatever is in need of fixing. I should say so!
UPDATE: KTRK-13 also covers this story.
