Philadelphia City Councilman beats administration in releasing app for citizen complaints

While the city of Philadelphia is still working on a smartphone app for reporting problems, a city councilman is introducing one of his own. 

Councilman Bobby Henon says he came up with the smartphone application in order to give constituents a way to directly contact city government when they have a problem.

“It’s a great way to connect the citizens of Philadelphia with their elected officials in particular that they may have at an immediate basis, so it’s City Hall at your fingertips,” said Henon.

Henon says he came up with the idea while listening to gripes when he was asking for votes.  

“You can take a picture of your complaint whether it’s a pothole, a bad neighbor, dangerous situations with public property or other concerns or trash or short dumping, there’s a menu of options you can report on,” he said.

The app reports to Henon’s office and assigns a tracking code to each request.  Philadelphia’s 311 system is working on a similar application but has not announced a release date.