Field of shattered dreams: The real reason City Hall is dragging its feet on 311
By adamg - Sat, 04/12/2008 - 10:30am.
Officials are worried that if they build it, people will come. As the Globe reported yesterday:
[Boston Chief Information officer Bill Oates] acknowledged a switch to the catchy and simple 311 could elicit a flood of new calls.
"One of the challenges of 311 is we don't want to turn the button on 311 and have a volume [of calls] that will overwhelm the capacity of the call center," Oates said. ...
Imagine: Give people an easy-to-remember complaint number and they'll use it. And next they'll expect the city to do something about their complaints!
Michael Pahre dials up some statistics on complaint numbers and challenges you to guess the city's current complaint number (no fair looking it up first) - on the right side of his post.
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Program it!
I programmed the current complaint line into my cell and call it probably once a day. I'm the Gladys Kravitz of my block.
Web Complaints
You can also make complaints or report problems via the web: www.cityofboston.gov/mayor/24/
While I admit that I don't know the phone number and have never used it, I've used the website often (and had pretty good response, including long-term follow-up from Mr. Frank McDonough on at least one issue that was difficult to resolve.)
Tracking. Councilors' constituents' complaints. Mayor's system.
Are councilors' constituents' complaints on the same system as the mayor's system for tracking?...
What if you don't live in Boston?
Is is still possible to pass along the gps coordinates of massive street-eating potholes and other damage?
I work in Boston and bike in, so I see stuff all the time.
A good question
The current number and website should work fine for a non-resident of Boston - you just report the issue. Personal information, including address, is optional. I would assume that 311 would work only from inside Boston, same as 911 in Boston is different from 911 in, say, Cambridge.