See, Click, and Fix!

The city of Durango has launched a new way to report quality of life issues around town and request city services with more accuracy and with the goal of reducing the time needed to address the issue. The program called SeeClickFix is designed in such a way. All someone has to do to report is to see an issue, click a photo and the city will send someone to fix the issue. You’re watching the Local News Network brought to you by Tafoya Barrett and Associates and Pop’s Truck and RV Center. I’m Connor Shreve.

So with SeeClickFix we were hoping to bring on a new reporting system. We did have one, Ask Durango, but we were looking for something with a little more functionality. And so a couple months ago we worked with our website host Civic Plus who offers SeeClickFix as a program. And we talked with them and figured out their program would work for us better than Ask Durango would. It’s got some more functionality. You can take pictures and upload pictures when you are reporting something and that’s primarily what SeeClickFix is. It’s a reporting app.

The city’s former reporting service, Ask Durango, enabled residents to report issues they saw in and around town. SeeClickFix will provide the same service but offers more ways for residents to submit a report. For example, if you’re out for a walk downtown and you see a pothole, you can open up the app or the webpage, find where you are on the provided map of Durango and drop a pin at the location. There’s an option to upload a photo or two which for visual issues like potholes, the city does recommend and a space to write up information. If the pothole has already been reported, you will be notified. And if you’re the first to report the issue, you’ll receive updates on the progress of the report.

SeeClickFix is very interactive with the people who are posting. So if you did post request a pothole be fixed, you’ll see a request on a map view, so will the rest of the public. And if someone else tries to report that same pothole in the same general area there’s a redundancy and it’ll let them know. It’ll say, hey, this has already been reported. Here is the thread for that report. When we get requests in, there is a timeline system that we can notify the public that we have received it, it’s being worked on and then finally that it is completed.

There are two ways to access SeeClickFix, either through the City of Durango’s website or by downloading the app to a phone. Either way offers an option to directly upload photos and text describing the issue and the report will be directed to the appropriate city entity. There are a variety of reporting options and the city has been able to amend the program to suit its needs.

Big one with Durango is we are definitely using it to report things on trail, trash or things that shouldn’t be on the trail. If it needs cleaning. Snow removal is a big one right now. We added that as soon as we launched it because it was not in our initial package of requests and an hour after launching it, it was a snowy day and we had five requests for snow removal, so we had to. And that’s the other thing about it, it’s so easy to update.

Reports submitted through SeeClickFix are monitored closely by the city to better ensure the reports are going to the appropriate office ensuring a timely response to each report. The platform does lend itself to more back and forth between the city and reporting parties enabling the public to see their voices are being heard by the city, and issues are being addressed as well as providing more transparency about how issues are being addressed. Explore SeeClickFix online by visiting the City of Durango’s website. A direct link to the program is on the top menu bar or download the app on your phone. Thanks for watching this edition of the Local News Network. I’m Connor Shreve.