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Citizen complaint of the day: Land's sakes
By adamg on Wed, 11/27/2013 - 6:46pm
A citizen so outraged he doesn't realize Citizens Connect is just for Boston complaints complains about a sign for Land Boulevard in Cambridge:
Some should tell DCR that it is Edwin H Land, NOT Edward H Land. Wouldn't it be easier to just call it Memorial Drive and call it a day?
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Comments
Surely that's Dr. Edwin H.
Surely that's Dr. Edwin H. Land to you.
That's a pretty embarrassing
That's a pretty embarrassing mistake, though. I hope the idiots at DCR get that fixed quickly.
Vindication!
Is this when I get to remind the uhubbertariat that I was pilloried for complaining a few weeks ago that people ought to know, or at least make an effort to find out, who the responsible governmental entity is when using these apps? (I am having a hard time linking to my previous comment, but it was on the thread about the bus shelter in Brookline on or about 10/30.)
The underlying assumption
The underlying assumption behind these apps are that citizens are too stupid to call the relevant department directly.
So far from what I've seen, I don't think I'm stupider than the first-line staff at these centralized municipal request services. I'm glad my city has resisted the trend to implement one.
Oh, aren't we superior?
And tell me: Do you have your city's DPW number memorized?
No, but I can google it in
No, but I can google it in less than 5 seconds. Which is far quicker than calling 311 and having them route the request.
Really?
You're standing outside your house and you see an abandoned toilet, and in exactly 5 seconds you can Google the exact right number at the DPW to call to have it picked up?
It would probably take me longer just to get my phone out of my pocket. But right after that, I could snap the thing's photo, call up the Citizen Connect app and file a complaint, which will then get routed to the appropriate person.
I'm not sure why there's such hostility towards an app that helps people more quickly file complaints with the city. To each his own, though - my hat's off to your superior Google-fu, me, I'll stick with the app.
It's not that people are too
It's not that people are too stupid to call. it's simply more convenient to send a picture with address attached via GPS than it is to call and spend 10 minutes trying to figure out how to specify where you are and exactly what's wrong. "Yeah, I'm at Comm Ave and at the intersection of, oh what's this cross street again? Let's see, oh, the sign is missing. Well, you know, down by where the Dunkies used to be?"
It's a lot lower time commitment to simply send a picture with address already attached and a few words in the note describing what's wrong.
Now, rather than insulting people who are trying to look out for their city, it may be more helpful to, say, set up an integrated system where it routes to the correct city based on your address. Or failing that, just give the people going through the complaints an easy way to forward them to the appropriate city. I don't always know precisely where the border between Charlestown and Cambridge is, or between Brookline and Allston, or any other border; it's sometimes a bit ambiguous unless you know the neighborhood well. Just forwarding complaints would be much more constructive than complaining about them.
I wasn't trying to insult the
I wasn't trying to insult the citizens who report problems.
I was trying to criticize the people in charge who decided that these systems are better than letting people call the relevant department directly. Because in my experience, citizens are perfectly capable of doing that, and it works much better.
Citizens Connect will forward
Citizens Connect will forward the information along to the DCR (who should be embarrassed)! Why not call this short stretch of road Land Blvd?
Barnabas Binney Street
... at the intersection of Barnabas Binney Street.
This Land ...
... is your Land,
This Land is my Land,
This Land is ...
My favorite lines from the song...
"As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me."
Betcha never learned THAT in elementary school....
This Land
is made of mountains
This Land is made of mud
This Land has lots of everything
For me and Elmer Fudd
Firesign Theater
So, to summarize....
We have a complaint registered to Boston, for a street in Cambridge, that's under the jurisdiction of the state DCR. Which of course, used to be the MDC.
Got that?
Don't be surprised that they make stupid mistakes
When you are still the dumping ground for connected hacks, stuff happens. These people did not leave hedge funds for these jobs. I know whereof I speak.
Cambridge is not Boston
Okay, almost all of you know that, but this person, and too many residents of not-Boston don't. Worse yet, there are people who live in neighborhoods like Brighton and Charlestown who think they don't live in Boston. I don't mean they wish they didn't or put the neighborhood instead of Boston on their mail (I do the latter and can wrap my head around the former). I have had to explain to people who live in these places that, yes, it is Boston.
Cambridge has something like Citizens Connect, right?
there are people who live in
How is that even possible, when the city's boundaries are so clearly marked?
/sarcasm