SJ City Council Launches iPhone App For Logging Complaints Friday, December 11, 2009 By KTVU.com SAN JOSE -- IPhone-owning residents of San Jose's first council district have a new way to report graffiti, abandoned vehicles and other neighborhood blight to the proper city departments. City Councilman Pete Constant has announced a new iPhone application that allows users to snap pictures of these offending conditions using the phone's built-in camera, then register their complaint with Constant's office. His staff in turn directs the maintenance requests to the proper city department. Constant is hosting a "download day" Saturday so constituents can learn about the application, then patrol their neighborhoods in search of potholes, broken streetlights and other maintenance issues to report. The event will run from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the West Community Policing Center, 3707 Williams Road. The application, dubbed Mobile City Hall, is the first of its kind in the Bay Area, according to David Kralik, spokesman for CitySourced, the startup company that developed the application. Kralik said it was surprising such a concept hasn't appeared sooner in the tech-savvy Bay Area. The San Jose program is a pilot, he said, and CitySourced has been talking with other South Bay communities interested in developing something similar if this application does well. The application actually works throughout the Bay Area, Kralik said, though complaints from users in other municipalities would be sent as a basic email. In Constant's district, staffers use a CitySourced-built portal to gather the complaints so they can route them to the correct city department. If San Jose residents from other districts log complaints, Constant's office will pass them along as well. The free application is accessible at Apple's iTunes store. Kralik said 350 people downloaded it the first weekend it was available, although Saturday marks the official debut in Constant's district. The councilman knew one of the CitySourced executives, and the idea sprung up during a conversation at an event, according to chief of staff Jim Cogan. "Pete is a little bit of a tech geek," he said. "It's taking that Web 2.0 idea that much further." Constant's office paid about $4,500 to establish the application, according to Cogan. He said the money is an investment in maintaining the district's service in the face of major budget deficits. With city workers making fewer routine maintenance visits, neighborhoods must increasingly rely on their own residents to identify issues, he said. Problems eliminated quickly are less likely to fester and turn into a larger issue, he said. The application lets residents register complaints as they see them. "When you're at the park and you see the broken swing, it bothers you. But by the time I get my son home, get him fed, put him down for a nap, I've lost steam," Cogan said. The application will be available next year on Palm and Droid, or Google smart phones, Cogan said. Constant and CitySourced founder Jason Kiesel will both speak at Saturday's gathering, and provide assistance before residents hit the streets with their new iPhone applications. "We expect a ton of reports to come in, then we'll have work to do," Cogan said.