Communication breakdown around Blair incident?

"What we got here is.... failure to communicate."

-- The Captain, "Cool Hand Luke"

Councilman Sid Tyler channeled the warden from the classic Paul Newman film during last night's City Council meeting, complaining that he had to hear about Friday's lockdown at Blair High School from television media reports.

"We have a written policy that council members are to be notified when we have an incident of this magnitude," Tyler told Assistant City Manager Julie Gutierrez (Barney Melekian was absent from the meeting). "Hopefully this was just an oversight."

Councilman Victor Gordo also complained that he wasn't notified of the incident and that his field representative at at the scene said the communication problems seemed to extend to officials' dealings with parents who had gathered in a panic to pick up their children at the school.

"There wasn't even a bullhorn readily available to communicate with the large crowd," Gordo said. "So maybe we need to review this incident."

Gutierrez admitted there had been a problem in passing on information to council members and their field representatives.