The Sandy Springs City Council voted to maintain its Citizen Response Center for a least one year.
The call center, which is staffed 24 hours a day, will cost the city $765,000 to run for the year. The city has the option to terminate the agreement, with a 30-day notice, after the first four months.
The center, run by CH2M Hill, answers about 10,000 requests for service a month, according to a memo prepared for the council.
Call center staffers answer questions from the public, as well as open service requests, transfer calls to Sandy Springs staff and provide dispatch services during emergency situations.
Sandy Springs resident Jane Kelley is pleased the city will continue the call center. She said it provides an immediate connection between the city and its residents.
“It is so much easier to have a single number to call,” she said. “And from there they can route your call to the right person, so you don’t have to figure that out.”
Kelley said she’s used the line for code issues in her neighborhood.
“And as I recall I got a call back about it and it was handled rather quickly,” she said.
The center is not part of any of the government service contracts that were awarded in May and began Friday. Sandy Springs awarded contracts for its government services to the following: InterDev, an Atlanta-based computer consulting firm, for information services; Severn Trent of Fort Washington, Pa., for financial services; San Francisco-based URS for public works; the Collaborative, based in Boston, for communications and community development; and Pasadena, Calif.-based Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. for municipal court and parks and recreation.
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