Some city officials are now complaining about the people who use the 311 system primarily to report matters needing attention by the City of Ottawa and much is being made of calls about ”neighbours.”
However, the notion that citizens should try to sort things out with the source of the problem, and if that does not work then call 311, has aspects which are both bizarre and potentially dangerous.
Two points should suffice to persuade our municipal officials to play the hand that they dealt themselves and to stop blaming citizens for using 311 as it is intended to be used.
First, rather than spend money on field staff such as bylaw officers, the city and other area municipalities adopted a complaints-based approach years ago, whereby the onus was put on citizens to call in complaints about potholes, unplowed roads, ice-covered sidewalks, littered parks, burnt-out street lights, plugged storm drains, abandoned buildings, overgrown hedges, garbage-strewn properties, barking dogs, noisy parties and so on.
Small wonder that numerous calls are made, including repeated complaints about matters that might never have arisen had proper standards and bylaw enforcement procedures been put in place by our municipal government.
Second, many 311-related incidents involve strangers rather than well-known neighbours and making personal contact can be problematic. Police services officials have raised concerns about the personal-contact approach idea for good reason: intended polite discussions with strangers and casual acquaintances can escalate into confrontations that have dire consequences.
I suggest that our municipal officials could best serve all citizens by doing a better job of preventing and correcting the problems that cause the 311 calls, rather than attempting to discourage civic-minded citizens who make the effort to inform the city of things gone and going wrong.
Barry Wellar,
Professor Emeritus,
University of Ottawa