Councilman Introduces Smart Phone Application

You’ve got to hand it to local governments; they continue to make it easier and easier for constituents to complain.  Of course, they are making it easier on themselves to process and resolve these complaints as well.

San Jose residents will have the power to send real time requests for City services to a City Councilman’s office through a new smart phone application.

“Everyone has a pothole, broken tree limb or abandoned car that they want the City to do something about,” said City Councilmember Pete Constant, who is helping pilot the new application.

“This application will make it possible for people to use the smart phone they already have with them to provide all of the information we need to address the problem right away, without having to lookup a phone number or send an email at a later time.”

The application will be available to the iPhone in October and available for Palm, Blackberry and Google Android in the next quarter.

PublicCEO covered a similar tool used in Pittsburgh, Penn. that integrated with the city’s 3-1-1 system and allows residents to take a photograph of occurrences such as traffic gridlock, potholes, issues in city parks, etc. and have them automatically sent to the city for resolution.