HomeMy WebLinkAboutIR 9898 INFORMAL REPORT TO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS No. 9898
To the Mayor and Members of the City Council June 14, 2016
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*a SUBJECT: REQUESTS FOR MOWING, GRAFFITI ABATEMENT, AND LITTER
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The City Council has requested information about how citizens can request mowing, graffiti
abatement, and litter abatement services for Interstate and State highway rights-of-way. All three
of these services can be reported to the City Call Center, operated by the Code Compliance
Department, at 817-392-1234. While certain calls, such as those involving crimes, may be routed
to other agencies, calls about tall grass, graffiti, and litter are taken by the Call Center and work
orders are created to dispatch staff from various agencies. In particular, graffiti calls are taken by
the Call Center and transferred to the Park and Recreation Department, although citizens may
call that department directly.
Prior to being merged with Code Compliance, the City Call Center would try to determine whether
a particular location was the responsibility of the City or State. Since being merged, however, the
policy has been to take the call and allow City field staff to determine which agency should
address the matter. Often, it becomes a shared responsibility whereby City and State staff work
together to address the issues.
The upside to taking the call is that it avoids the problems that tend to arise whenever citizens are
referred to multiple agencies. Most of the time, this procedure works flawlessly. However, when
an outside agency is slow to respond or fails to respond, citizens may blame the City Call Center.
The Code Compliance Department works with other agencies to minimize the incidence of this
problem.
In 2015, the Call Center took over 434,000 calls. Answering these calls in a timely fashion,
providing helpful feedback/answering questions, and researching unique questions (as opposed
to blindly transferring to another agency) must be balanced with available resources. Higher call
volumes may diminish staff ability to meet these objectives. The Call Center is equipped to
handle these calls and we continue to grow technologies and partnerships to add additional
services/hours.
If you any questions about this topic, please contact Code Compliance Director Brandon Bennett
at 817-392-6322.
David Cooke
City Manager
ISSUED BY THE CITY MANAGER FORT WORTH, TEXAS