Tuesday, January 25, 2005

City complaint desk goes online

By KELLY DONOVAN/Staff Writer

BARSTOW -- From barking dogs to potholes, residents now have a place to file their complaints with City Hall without getting the runaround.

The city launched a new customer service feature on its Web site Monday, allowing residents to ask questions and register problems, complaints and compliments online. The system is designed to make sure residents' issues are handled in a timely fashion, and it allows residents to track the status of their requests.

"(The City Council) wanted the city to become more responsive to the residents," city spokesman John Rader said.

After submitting a request via a form on the Web site, residents will get a confirmation message that includes the deadline when they should expect to hear back from a city staff member. The deadline for most requests has been set at two weeks.

To keep the city staff on track with responding to requests on time, the system notifies the staff member responsible for handling a request as the deadline approaches, Rader said.

In the past, he said, a staff member might lose little notes on their desk about a resident's problem, or get busy and forget to get back to somebody. Now, he said, the software won't lose the information or forget about it.

"The system doesn't allow anything to fall through the cracks," he said.

The online customer service is available on the city's Web site, www.barstowca.org, by clicking on the "contact us" button in the "City News" box.