An Idea Worth Exploring

Every once in a while, Rahm squibs one into the outfield that isn't a total boner:

• Chicagoans requesting the removal of gang graffiti or complaining about rats in their alleys would have their calls fielded by a private company rather than the city-run 311 operation under a proposal Mayor Rahm Emanuel floated Tuesday.
  
  His idea of privatizing the 311 call center came in his 2016 budget address, saying it would save the city "about a million dollars a year" to replace union workers with outside contractors. It was one of the few pieces of actual news Tuesday, after the mayor's administration had spent the past week dribbling out many of their financial proposals for the coming year.
  
  The mayor later said bringing in an outside operator would save the city the cost of making much-needed upgrades to the technology at the non-emergency information center, which would cost considerably more than the operations savings.

There are plenty of able-bodied officers at 3-1-1 who would be better utilized on the streets. There is a command structure in place that would be better serving in the Districts. Civilian operators, even outsourced ones could easily take the standard non-emergency calls about vacant lots, open buildings, burnt out streetlights, potholes, city service requests, etc.....essentially, the entire CAPS system.

This in turn might free up dozens of bodies hiding at HQ in the CAPS implementation office or whatever they're calling it now, headed by one of the eighteen Deputy Chiefs that do nothing except suck up money and manpower.

The Department was looking at automating much of this in the past, but how many votes can a robot deliver? The only questions become (A) what to do with POW's serving there along with the short-and-long-term medical people who aren't street ready, but capable of performing sworn duty functions, and (B) which functions must be performed by a sworn officer?