Have a problem?
Soon Chelsea – like other cities – can “3-1-1” it.
City Manager Tom Ambrosino said he hopes to proceed with introducing a 311 constituent services reporting platform to the City in the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1.
Already, Everett, Revere, Boston and others feature a telephone and online/app 311 system that residents can use to report anything from a pothole to graffiti to a rabid skunk.
“The goal is to provide better and more prompt responsiveness to constituent complaints,” read a letter from Ambrosino to the Council.
Ambrosino said the system he has in mind would operate with two employees working out of the DPW building. They would field complaints from 311 by telephone, email, text message and web-based reporting. They would fall under the supervision of Public Works Commissioner Fidel Maltez.
Once having taken the complaint, the employees would then assign the complaint to the appropriate department.
That would open up a series of accountability measures on each complaint, he said.
“These employees will be responsible for assigning the issue to the appropriate department representative or directly accessing the relevant information in a City database, tracking progress on the issue providing information on the resolution of the issue to the individual who reported it,” he wrote. “We believe this will be a much more effective way of addressing constituent complaints and hopefully it will be well-received by our residents.”
Start-up costs would look to be $162,000 for employees and the computer software. He said there is already $27,000 set aside for the program, and $50,000 from a state grant received last year. The remainder of the first-year costs would have to come from a budget request.
“I hope the Council will see the benefits of this improved constituent services effort and approve the requested FY20 appropriations,” he wrote.
The new system would replace the old SeeClickFix reporting system, which never worked as advertised.