Redlands311 Smartphone App Connects City + Residents: Gets Statewide Award

The Center for Digital Government recently recognized the city of Redlands for its Redlands311 smartphone app, which earned the 2012 Best of California award for Best Application Serving the Public.

Redlands311 allows residents to use their smartphones to report graffiti, potholes, abandoned shopping carts and potential public safety issues direct to city staff, which allows faster response from appropriate city departments.

Residents can also report using the Redlands311 platform on a laptop, desktop or any other type of computer, David Hexem, the city's chief information technology officer, said in an interview Wednesday in his office at City Hall.

Hexem led the effort to bring the app to Redlands residents.

"It launched on February 14 of 2011," Hexem said . "What it was, I saw CitySourced at an ESRI conference. They had a keynote speaker at an ESRI conference in the summer of 2010.

"CitySourced provides the app and provides the support to the city," Hexem said. "They're based out of Pasadena. . . . They created this app. When we implemented it, at the time there were only three other cities in California that were using it. Los Angeles, Glendale and San Francisco."

Hexem said he recognized the app could be beneficial and cost-effective for the city of Redlands. It allows the city to tap into crowdsourcing to increase city staff awareness of issues that require timely response.

"What is does is, historically the city has only been able to really look at a lot of issues whenever field staff would see things . . . identify things in the field," Hexem said. "What this allows now is anybody with a smartphone to be able to almost be an extension of a city employee by reporting issues."

The application uses geo-tagging technology to automatically provide locations to go with problem reports, city staff said in an announcement about the award.

The city's partnership with - the Redlands-based geographic information systems company on New York Street - allowed Redlands to implement the app at a reduced cost, Hexem said.

"We have an enterprise license agreement with ESRI, Esri," Hexem said. "And CitySourced is an Esri partner. So what we try and do, we match up with Esri partners to bring solutions to the city.

"The cost of the first 15 months was about $3,000, which is probably a savings of $9,000 to the city the first year, because of the partnership we have with Esri."

The cost for the next year is about $9,000, Hexem said.

Hexem estimated the city has received about 850 Redlands311 reports since the city launched the app in February 2011. It's proven popular with some residents, he said.

"All we tell people is we don't want them to use their cellphone for this while they're driving," Hexem said.

The app is available for iPhone, Droid, Blackberry and Windows phone platforms, Hexem said. To find it in any smartphone app store enter "Redlands311."

"And if you don't have a smartphone, you can still report issues to the city on our website," Hexem said.

The city website link for Redlands311 is www.cityofredlands.org/311.

City staff listed some of the issues smartphone users can report using Redlands311:

• Abandoned bicycles, vehicles and shopping carts
• Loose, dead or biting animals
• Graffiti
• Potholes
• Flooding
• Homeless encampments or nuisances
• Illegal dumping
• Illegal fires
• Illegal signs
• Parking violations
• Overgrown or problem trees and plants
• Roadway or sidewalk dangers
• Non-working streetlights
• Polluting vehicles

CitySourced is billed on its website as "a real time mobile civic engagement platform." The platform provides "a free, simple, and intuitive platform empowering people to identify civic issues" including public safety, quality of life, and environmental issues, and allows them to report issues for quick resolution, according to CitySourced.

The Center for Digital Government bills itself as "a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government." The center is based in Folsom outside Sacramento.