Fountain Hills residents will soon have a new citizen engagement tool to use in communication with Town staff. Community Relations Director Bo Larsen introduced the council to the program at the March 21 regular council meeting. He said it is still a couple of months from going active.

The Town currently uses a “request tracker” platform to provide citizens a program to report issues related to code enforcement, street concerns, public works issues and park-related concerns.

Larsen said the current system is aging out as the software is no longer supported, although the system currently still works.

The Citizen Request Management (CRM) tool is replacing request tracker with new upgrades for resident submittal of concerns and issues.

“The new system is significantly more robust and provides residents with the ability to report physical problem conditions to the system,” Larsen said in his written staff report. “Based on the nature of the complaints, service requests will be directed to the appropriate division.

“In addition to sending acknowledgement of the service requests, the system will maintain a database with updates about the problem conditions until resolved.”

The CRM tool is a management platform that will use a web portal, phone app or phone calls to take reports. People will be able to view a map that will tell them whether the situation has already been reported.

A name is required to submit a report, but it is not reported.

Larsen said the system is already in use by other cities and entities such as MCDOT (Maricopa County transportation department).

An announcement will be made when the system goes live.