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Boston complaint system works so well state wants to extend it to other communities
By adamg on Tue, 05/08/2012 - 8:35am
The City Council votes tomorrow on whether to accept a $400,000 state grant to create a version of the city's Citizen Connect application for use by other Massachusetts cities and towns.
The service lets residents and visitors quickly compose a report - complete with an attached photo - on everything from potholes and missing street signs to vandalism and other non-emergency acts of crime. The reports are fed into a city complaint command center and distributed to the relevant city departments. Although the initial effort targeted smartphone users, people without fancy phones can also file reports via a Web form or text message.
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
Citizens Connect
Citizens Connect works great (except that the GPS can be extremely iffy, and it's a major PITA to correct when it's wrong - there is no option to simply type in an address.) If only the city followed through on the issues reported. It's especially bad about graffiti, as I've reported here many times - there are reports I placed in the summer of 2011 that have still not been resolved, and I continue to find that in a significant number of cases that are closed, the work is not actually done (and that doesn't even count the cases that are "closed" because they've been turfed to another agency, like tagged mailboxes.)
it's worked great for me in Roslindale
I've reported probably a dozen issues--most of them resolved within 48 hours. Potholes, graffiti, broken glass on sidewalk/playground, school zone lights not timed to correct hours of school, etc. And, then there is the bonus entertainment value of the chronic bored complainers who use it to gripe about all the things that prevent Boston from being their perfect world.
Extremely fast way to report traffic signal issues
I've reported 5-6 traffic signal issues (most with a burned out bulb, one where traffic light was stuck on red). Within 24 hours all of the issues I reported were resolved.
Maybe a list
should be made of needed improvements?
I like the option to manually enter an address or coordinates. I'd also like a better way to browse complaints and to vote them up or down.
Works great except when it doesn't
Citizens Connect works great, except when the City replies back "Closed" on an issue with no explanation without actually resolving the issue, or gives you back a BS answer as to why something can't be fixed. There is no way to reply back to them without calling on the phone, which is kind of a pain.
Or leaves it open for 6 months
without any option to check the status or bump it up in the queue without calling a human.
Reply by email
Actually, you can reply to the "Case Resolved" email that you get. Although you will not get any reply to that, or any other indication that the case has been re-opened, and you won't get any secondary notification if/when the case finally is resolved (or is closed again without being resolved.) Which is, as you rightly put it, kind of a pain.
It works okay, mostly. I got
It works okay, mostly. I got rid of a dead bird on the sidewalk on the second try; once I posted a picture, it was actually gone. The walk signal near my house is still so loud that I can hear it through closed windows over the TV though, and I'm a block away, and I've reported it twice (I don't care during the day, it's annoying in the middle of the night). Supposedly they've fixed a treacherous spot in one of the Dot Ave bike lanes I reported. We'll see. I've had mixed results, but I like having the option to report things.