Tucson Standard

The City of Tucson is set to launch a 311 number for nonemergency response, a recent news release from EMS1 said.

The new number will bolster 911 emergency responses, the release said. Tucson officials were present on June 29 at a New Orleans gathering where the Transform911 initiative led by the University of Chicago Health Lab disclosed a policy plan for altering the 911 system.

"We need to make sure that we ensure the right response at the right time," Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said in the release. "We have for decades been putting on the backs of police officers responsibilities and societal challenges that we haven't created new structures for."

The mayor emphasized challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"In 2020 ... the world really changed because of the pandemic, but because also of the highlight that was put on policing and the systems that we have in place that frankly were not working," Romero said in the release.

The mayor believes the new system will help marginalized communities.

"They were not working for communities of color, low-income communities, and they were not working for our own workers in the city of Tucson and throughout the United States," she said. "They were not working for police officers, they were not working for fire, they were not working for 911 communications."

Romero noted that developing a system like this has been a priority for some time. 

"It's been a priority for me that we are really instituting the systems we need to do community policing and serve our residents well," she said.

The mayor also commented that policies like this have support across the nation.

"Mayors across the U.S. must support the effective functioning of the 911 system across America," she said. "Everyone knows 911, but what we are facing is we need to reintroduce 911 to the communities."

Romero hopes the system will be centered on citizens.

"We are holding hands as professionals in public safety and making sure that the systems that we create together actually work for our communities and that they're people-centered, and that we have the systems in place in our communities that we need to connect the people that need services to the services available, whether they're created by your government or created by nonprofit organizations," she said.