I'm going to plug a city service that I absolutely love: 311. I call or tweet 311 four to five times a day with new complaints. Yes, I'm 'that guy'. Uncollected trash on a street corner to me is a sign of a neighborhood's low self-esteem, and getting rid of it helps make my neighbors and me feel better about where we live. Clean streets, weed-free sidewalks, and the like are the hallmarks of a community that cares and whose neighbors look out for one another.
How many times a day do you call 311, and what do you generally call about?
Great to know someone else is calling and doing something to clean up the streets. I routinely call about that and also about homeless people sleeping in the square or inside the bus stop at 3rd x Palou. I'm a little agressive about the trash, streets, and sidewalks, so if a reasonable amount of time goes by and the trash isn't gone, I send an email to Muhammed Nuru, the #2 at DPW and cc his boss Ed Reiskin. I cite the 311 report number and send a photo. That usually does the trick. The problem with 311 is they just take the info. If they make the wrong determination then the City department that received it will just trash the complaint instead of turning it over to the correct agency. It gets tagged "completed" for data's sake and makes it look like someone did something.
ReplyDeleteLikewise the blighted buildings. Just call the DBI (Dept of Building Inspection) and make a complaint. They assign it to an inspector and give it a complaint number. If you don't get any satisfaction, give Ed Sweeney a call or send him an email with a photo, the complaint number, and the name of the inspector to whom it was assigned. He's in charge there and you'll get a reply asap. Finally, if 311 can't help with your neighbors putting their trash cans away, the contact person at DPW is Nancy Lynch. I'm going to say I've had good responses from these three folks over time. They care, and they make sure the work gets done.
I've been walking the district for one of the candidates and tell residents about 311 if the subject comes up. I've found that a lot of people are surprised that the City has this service and it's free. I'm going to post another Good Idea about treah in the good idea folder. Maybe someone can comment on it.
What is the twitter link? I would LOVE to tweet about the potholes. San Francisco makes your average 3rd world country look like the yellow brick road when it comes to our potholes. Is it their strategy to just kill our cars? I am tired of paying for alignments. HoHum.
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