Public Services

These past few years remind us what the core mission of local government should always be: serving the public. With this in mind, our town government desperately needs to rebrand itself as something that actually exists to improve the lives of our residents rather than being a bureaucratic obstacle that only gets in the way. 

Simple innovations to how we offer public services can lead to substantial quality of life improvements. First and foremost, efficiency studies should be performed for all departments as we look for the best ways to bring their processes into the 21st century. Several other towns and cities across the country have found great success in creating apps that provide residents with a more direct line to our public services. Say you notice a pothole on your street; rather than the current process of playing musical chairs with our town hall offices (made especially excruciating by the current mayor’s resistance to email and voicemail systems), an app would allow you to easily file a complaint directly, take a picture of the issue, and have Public Works handle it from there. If you see someone experiencing some type of distress, but they do not pose an immediate threat to themselves or anyone else, you could simultaneously notify all potentially relevant emergency services through an app so they can send whatever assistance makes the most sense. This will never replace the value of speaking to someone directly over the phone, however, the more options people are given to communicate with public services, the more accessible these resources become.

On a similar note, Riley O’Connell is a strong proponent for establishing an online and social media presence for the town. For example, Wallingford plays host to so many wonderful events all year long, but the town struggles to notify residents accordingly. This has become increasingly difficult as the daily readership of most local papers has dropped significantly in recent years, limiting the effectiveness of what was once the best way to disperse information out into the community. Over 75% of American adults are on social media today, which provides a new way to communicate with neighbors at a range and speed never before possible, but that requires an openness to adapt that the current administration is very much opposed to. To be clear, these new online mediums of communication definitely come with their own sets of challenges and complexities, but the possibilities are limitless if implemented correctly.

Social media has the potential to be an even more critical communication channel when it comes to each of our town departments and their respective missions. If power lines go down and there’s a resulting outage in some part of town, the Electric Division can post updates online to answer urgent questions rather than fielding dozens of identical calls. If there’s a dangerous situation unfolding in any part of town, or an active investigation that’s seeking additional information, the Police and Fire Departments can notify and engage with residents online as appropriate. Even for something as simple as routine road closers for paving or snow plowing, Public Works could post about it to diffuse the information as efficiently and accurately as possible. Our current mayor prefers to hide behind the ignorant claim that Wallingford should have no presence on social media because it would lead to impersonation pages being created. Not only does that demonstrate a complete lack of understanding on how social media actually works (there are verification features on major platforms that prevent precisely that), but in fact the opposite of his statement is true; it’s the absence of official town pages that creates a void for these fraudulent pages to fill and take advantage of.

Maintaining and building upon essential infrastructure is another critical responsibility of municipal government that cannot afford to continue being overlooked. This ranges everything from keeping the lights on to keeping the roads well paved, as well as maintaining our schools, sidewalks, parks, public buildings, utilities, and so much more. Above all this is about safety, but it’s also about spending one dollar on upkeep today to save five dollars tomorrow. The longer we wait to address these issues, the more it is going to cost, and the more unnecessary safety risks our residents will face.