311 to put an end to city's VIP help line

The Nutter administration's ballyhooed 311 call center promises to offer all residents near-immediate around-the-clock access to city operators. But a select few - including elected officials, ward leaders, campaign donors, and other local bigwigs - have always had priority access to city operators on a special VIP phone line.

That line, like all other city directory-assistance numbers, will now be routed to the official 311 call center, which officially opens Jan. 1. Interestingly, the workstations used by 311 operators to log calls include a "VIP" tag, which gets applied to all calls forwarded from the old VIP line.

Not that VIP callers will get any VIP treatment, Nutter officials hastened to say.

"Those calls will be answered by the same operators as any other 311 call," said Rosetta Carrington, director of the program. "They won't get any special assistance."

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