Now you can request and track city services on the Internet. The automation of government has begun. Yes, you can still call, but you might be on hold for 10 minutes before talking to someone who will read the same computer screen to you that you can find on the Internet. Kelly Chicago Sun Times Need a city pothole fixed? Now, just point and click July 11, 2001 BY FRAN SPIELMAN CITY HALL REPORTER Callers to 311--whose No. 1 plea to the city is to get rid of abandoned vehicles--can now click for service on the Internet and monitor the responses, Mayor Daley said Tuesday. More than 3 million residents dial up the city's non-emergency number each year. The three top requests for help concern abandoned vehicles at 90,358 calls, followed by graffiti (68,608), tree trims (46,406), immediate tow (44,431) and clean catch basin/gutter box (41,373). The computer access "is a major re-engineering of the way service is delivered to citizens," said Chris O'Brien, the city's chief information officer. Ten months after ordering a 311 shakeup in response to a barrage of complaints, Daley pronounced the reforms a success and took steps to take the load off the city's 61 call-takers. Instead of calling 311, a city department or aldermen, Chicago residents and businesses can use computers to go to www.cityof chicago.org, the all-purpose city Web site that has fast become what O'Brien likes to call a "municipal mall on the Web." Those who click on the words "request a city service" will be asked to chose from a pop-up menu of the 25 most popular services. After typing in their name along with the address of the broken street light, pothole or stray animal, computer users will get a computer tracking number that can be used to monitor the city's response. It's the same system that City Hall uses to generate work orders and spot trends that underscore a larger problem. The Daley administration released a list of the 25 most frequently requested city services by 311 callers for the first six months of this year at a City Hall news conference. The latest in a series of Internet services was quietly made available in mid-April. Since then, City Hall has received 1,000 service requests-- enough to give Daley the confidence to go public with the latest advance in a 311 system that has succeeded beyond his wildest imagination. "The naysayers were very strong 2 1/2 years ago [when 311 went online]. They said it would never work," Daley said. "[But] it's clear that Chicagoans have embraced the 311 number." Even with the Internet, the mayor said he does not foresee the day when call-takers will no longer be necessary. "A lot of people want to talk to someone. You need the human side," he said. Last fall, Daley hired 19 more operators and created a Cabinet-level department headed by Ted O'Keefe, project manager of the city's community policing program, in response to a steady rise of 311 calls and complaints that bureaucrats too often drop the ball on service requests. A handful of aldermen said they have no problem with diverting service requests to the Internet. "We receive hundreds of phone calls every day asking for things to get done. I say, the more forces you have at work, the better off we all are as a city," said Ald. Eugene Schulter (47th). VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List. To join or leave the list, send a message to [log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type "subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations. VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html