We’ve all seen “Not in Service” displayed on local transit buses. Local PBS station KETC went to Metro’s garage on DeBaliviere at Delmar (aerial image) to show us what happens to the buses when they return to the garage:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG3eTDai-vU
Keeping transit on the street and rails is certainly a lot of work. For voters in St. Louis County, please keep this in mind as you go to the polls on April 6, 2010. Without funding the region’s mass transit will say “not in service” 24/7.
Except that Missouri law prevents the app from working! WTF? Trying to think of the logic as to why such a law would be in place. I scanned the long list of Missouri liquor control laws and didn’t find an obvious one to review.  Probably and old Blue Law.
Every two years brings municipal elections in the City of St. Louis. In 2011 we will elect half the Board of Aldermen (14 even numbered wards) as well as the President of the Board of Aldermen. Four members of the St. Louis School Board are also elected at the general election. For more detail see the St. Louis Board of Elections page on How to Declare Your Candidacy for Any Federal, State, or City Office.
I ran for alderman in the 25th ward in 2005 and lost to the then incumbent, Dorothy Kirner. Participating in our electoral process as a candidate was a tremendous experience. In 2007 I moved downtown. My loft is located in the 6th ward represented by Kacie Starr Triplett. I will not be running in 2011 as I am generally pleased with Ald. Triplett’s performance so far. Her communications with constituents is among the best. Also, as long as many in St. Louis call their alderman about fixing potholes, requesting stop signs and other such non-legislative tasks I don’t want the job anyway. My hope is we can begin to get away from pothole politics so our elected reps can set policy, leaving potholes to the bureaucrats.
I would like to see a number of the other 14 aldermen from odd numbered wards replaced with new blood. A year from now we need at least 15 people having filed to seek office. Since we go through the trouble and additional expense of having a partisan primary and a general election it would be nice to see contested offices in the primary and general election. If all the candidates are Democrats it will prove my point that we don’t need to waste money pretending we have multiple parties in our municipal elections.
Important dates:
Filing opens at 8am on Monday November 28, 2010 (“Filing for municipal offices opens at 8:00 A.M. on the date that is 100 days prior to the date of the applicable Primary Municipal Election.”)
Filing closes at 5pm on Friday January 7, 2011 (“Filing for municipal offices closes at 5:00 P.M. on the date that is 60 days prior to the date of the applicable Primary Municipal Election.”}
The partisan primary will be Tuesday March 8, 2011.
The general election will be Tuesday April 6, 2011.
I’m a huge advocate of elected officials using Twitter to communicate with constituents. But for Mayor Slay to use Twitter to suggest a change in a department under his authority seems odd:
If I could text complaints to the CSB, I could attach photos taken by my phone. How about it, CSB? #fgs 6:16pm, Dec 03 from TwitterBerry
Many of Mayor Slay’s tweets are written by staff but I’ve been told by his staff that tweets with the hashtag “#fgs” are by Mayor Slay himself.
The Citizens’ Service Bureau is the customer service department for the City of St. Louis. Citizens may contact the Citizens’ Service Bureau to register complaints or compliments regarding City services or neighborhood concerns using the form provided at right.
I like that the mayor wants to make it easier for some of us to communicate a problem to the bureaucrats in city hall but I’m disturbed at the method he is using to express this to the bureaucrats under his control and located next door at City Hall. The mayor’s office is room 200 and the CSB is room 234. And asking rather than pulling together the staff to make change happen. My guess is it was just a show to look like he was on top of the latest technology.
How can I register a complaint with the Citizens’ Service Bureau?
So the CSB has a weekday phone number and an online form. I agree with the mayor that being able to send pictures would be helpful but texting of pictures seems very old fashioned. If the mayor wanted to really move St. Louis forward he’d forget texting pictures, he’d contact Boston’s Mayor Menino about licensing their technology that was announced back in July:
Boston City Hall, a drab concrete monument to 1960s Brutalism run by a self-described urban mechanic who despises voice mail, isn’t exactly known as a hotbed of technological innovation.
But within, a few young, tech-savvy aides are trying to drag municipal government into the age of mobile gadgetry. And they think they’ve hit on something big: a “killer app” that marries 21st-century technology with Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s old-school devotion to pothole politics.
City officials will soon debut Boston’s first official iPhone application, which will allow residents to snap photos of neighborhood nuisances – nasty potholes, graffiti-stained walls, blown street lights – and e-mail them to City Hall to be fixed.
City officials say the application, dubbed Citizen Connect, is the first of its kind in the nation. It was designed as an extension of the city’s 24-hour complaint hotline for the younger set, making the filing of complaints quicker and easier for iPhone users. (full story: Boston Globe)
I downloaded the free app to see how it worked. I’m not a fan of “pothole politics” but it rules here in St. Louis as in Boston.
Categories are few:
It uses GPS to pinpoint the location and allows for the user to add a picture.
You can post anonymously or leave your contact information:
This is how you bring city hall into the 21st century on the eve of 2010, not sending images via a text message. And I’d suggest emailing Mayor Menino rather than using Twitter.
A benefit on the back end is using the GPS data to see where complaints are concentrated on a map. Integrating with maps a department could easily see if several potholes are concentrated and could therefore be handled by a single crew on one trip. Complaints received via phone/web would need to be added to the internal map tracking as well to ensure everyone received the same level of service.
In a recent poll here on mobile phones the iPhone was the most popular answer among smartphones with twice as many votes as the BlackBerry. Many iPhone apps are being ported to other platforms such as the BlackBerry and Android so others could report issues. Of course not everyone has a smartphone, for those you can call during the week or use the online form.
Such an app for St. Louis would also potentially start to break the habit of calling your alderman about petty problems such as potholes. With improved customer service from the bureaucrats it would let the elected legislators legislate. Now that is a radical idea!
Charter reform advocates point out our city has a weak mayor organizational structure. True, but this is an example of a weak mayor.
Knowing what our elected officials are working on used to require attending monthly neighborhood meetings. Not bad if you are free when the meetings are held and patient enough to sit through the entire meeting to hopefully get a clue what they are up to. Not good if you care to know about more than a single ward. How many meetings can one person reasonably attend per month just to be an informed citizen? Then add in the issue of just trying to know what meetings are held when, where and who will be there. If you are parochial you only care about that which is within your ward — across the street doesn’t matter. In St. Louis that means your 3.6% (1/28th) section of the city. Many of us, however, take a broader view of issues and problems facing not just the city but the entire St. Louis region. 3.6% is not enough.
For a number of years now I’ve complained that too few of our elected officials blogged. If you wanted to know what they were working on you had on track them down at a neighborhood meeting. Even then you got the same old boring stuff, no real news about what they are working on.
With the rise of Twitter, the 140 character micro-blogging site, our elected officials can now easily reach those interested in knowing what they are working on. Some of them have embraced Twitter as a way to easily communicate.
The following are elected officials from the City of St. Louis on Twitter:
The list above includes all ages, races & both genders. It includes senior members and two elected earlier this year. My apologies if I’ve left anyone off the list. The use by those listed above varies. Mayor Slay does not personally tweet. Others can go weeks between tweets.
The above is just for the City of St. Louis. Our region includes hundreds of units of government. St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley is also on Twitter. But what about members of the St. Louis County Council? Hundreds of mayors in the region? Heads of other counties in our 16-county region? Newly elected State Senator Joe Keaveny is on Twitter.
I started this post a couple months ago. Since then Twitter has added a lists feature. So for this post I created a list with elected officials that represent part of the St. Louis region. Right now the list has 20 persons from both sides of the river. You can subscribe to the entire list or pick and chose. If you know of others that should be on the list let me know.
With only 20 on this list this means that most of our elected officials are not on Twitter. Many of you are probably not either. Not everyone needs to follow every official. What is important is that they are putting out ideas and asking for feedback. The other day I sent feedback to Lt. Gov Peter Kinder. I’ve sent a message or two to Senator Claire McCaskill as well as numerous local aldermen. With the local press following them as well you are likely to get better reporting.
If you go to your ward/neighborhood meetings keep doing so. Â Â But I’m interested in the entire region.
UPDATE 11/13/09 7:50am: Just got word that Mayor Slay does do some personal tweeting – those with #fgs at the end. Good to know.
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