Westside Story – MyLakewood311 Part II

On March 24, 2017, I published an article in The Suburban Times titled Westside Story – MyLakewood311. I shared what I thought was a prime and timely example of how MyLakewood311 can work.

The photo below depicts how irresponsible people, who have no concern about our city’s appearance or citizen safety can freely trash our city. In this instance, someone or several someones certainly abused public property.

Additionally, if we leave trash in the city right-of-way, human nature being what it is, even citizens who possess a significant level of responsibility, will think to themselves, “Hey, it must be alright. Everybody is doing it. Obviously, no one cares as evidenced by the fact that no one is doing anything about it. I have some trash and old vehicles. I will drop mine off there too.” Garbage begets garbage. If citizens do nothing, one day they find themselves living in a slum with high crime and low property values.

Slum condition before activating MyLakewood311 communication with city staff.

Well, I did something about it. I sent a citizen complaint report to the city via the MyLakewood311 app on my smartphone. I did that on a weekend. Starting on Monday, when city staff returned to their government cubicles, things started happening.

Take a look at my photo below which documents how much better our city can look without some slum-master dumping their garbage on the rest of us.

After MyLakewood311 staff took care of business.

Some people become irate when you tag their vehicle with green window paint and an information card describing the who, what, where, why and how of the vehicle tagging process along with a contact phone number.

I always met that kind of hostility with a common sense question. “Would you have preferred I simply impound your vehicle without notice?” A frequent response would be, “Well no. Thanks for tagging my vehicle and giving me a chance to solve the problem and thereby avoid the impound and storage charges.”

In the case of the horse trailer, the owner removed the item from public property, which is a significant improvement, and it is now stored in their nearby yard, which is a new problem.

Now the horse trailer is a non-licensed eyesore on private property which is an improvement over having it stored on public property. This is a problem and solution I can cover in a future article.

Thank you, Lakewood City Council for developing, approving and implementing the MyLakewood311 citizen – city community problem-solving plan. Thank you, City of Lakewood staff for always providing such fantastic problem-solving follow-through within an expeditious time frame.

Is this not great? The clean-up helps our city show more pride and we can say something nice about our city. Lakewood’s MyLakewood311 program helps our city achieve its full potential as a great place to live, work and play.

As our first mayor, General Bill Harrison liked to say. “Today is a great day to live in the City of Lakewood.”