When he became governor in 2019, Gavin Newsom promised to upgrade the state’s decrepit 911 system, which is a relic from the 1970s. So much has changed technologically that it’s “astounding” that California emergency services rely on “analog systems designed decades ago,” he said per a Sacramento Bee report. Newsom was correct to pinpoint this infrastructure problem in a state plagued by natural disasters. The governor proposed a Next Generation system to bring emergency services into the modern era.

Yet what unfolded is a tale that’s frustratingly emblematic. As that recent Bee investigation added , the state “paid four technology companies over $450 million” to build it. “But when the time came to turn that system on, it didn’t work.” Then the California Governor’s Office of Emer

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