BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1769
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Date of Hearing: April 13, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
AB
1769 (Rodriguez) - As Amended March 28, 2016
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: YesReimbursable:
No
SUMMARY:
This bill expands existing law, which makes a "nuisance call" to
the 911 system a misdemeanor, subject to specific fines, by
making the same prohibitions and penalties to other electronic
communication devices.
FISCAL EFFECT:
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Minor nonreimbursable costs to cities and counties for
enforcement, offset to some extent by fine revenues.
COMMENTS:
Background/Purpose. The Warren 911 Emergency Assistance Act
established the original 911 line in California as part of a
national push to make 911 the primary contact number for
emergencies nationwide. The Local Emergency Telephone Systems
Article required localities to develop their own system or join
a regional system for police, fire and medical emergency
dispatch using the 911 phone number rather than the thousands of
separate emergency numbers for each local department that
existed previously. The regional dispatchers who connect 911
callers to the appropriate emergency response entity are called
Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs). Currently, there are
452 PSAPs statewide receiving tens of millions of calls each
year, with approximately half of these coming from cell phones.
The volume of calls and the difficulty in locating cell phone
callers, among other issues, precipitated the need for an
upgrade to the 911 system.
SB 1211 (Padilla), Chapter 926, Statutes of 2014, requires the
Office of Emergency Services to develop a plan and timeline of
target dates for testing, implementing, and operating a Next
Generation 911 (NG911) emergency communication system, including
text to 911 service, throughout California.
Current law attempts to deter frivolous, harassing or otherwise
inappropriate non-emergency calls by imposing a schedule of
warnings and fines in the case of frivolous and non-emergency
calls, or fines and jail time for use of the 911 system to annoy
or harass. However, this only applies to telephone calls -not
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the other electronic communications methods enabled by NG911
systems. This bill prohibits use of these other electronic
communications.
Analysis Prepared by:Pedro Reyes / APPR. / (916)
319-2081