This is the latest in a series of articles that will regularly appear on KenoWi.com from Kenosha Police Department Crime Prevention Unit Officers Jeff Wamboldt and Ron Francis:

Imagine a city in which every citizen was empowered with the ability to play an active role in their neighborhood, working hand in hand with local authorities and government officials to improve the quality of life for all residents. In Kenosha, citizens have more than one way to make this a reality. To compliment Kenosha’s Neighborhood Watch program, citizens now have a new tool which allows the reporting of blight via the internet. The SeeClickFix site is a web tool that allows citizens to report non-emergency neighborhood issues such as graffiti, potholes, and non-working streetlights. This tool, accessible by many cell phones, is a form of community activism and centers around a web-based map that displays all user comments, including photographs and suggested resolutions.

Founded in September of 2008 and based in New Haven Connecticut, SeeClickFix was first introduced to the City of Kenosha earlier this year when the Common Council’s Technology Committee decided to sponsor it. “The application gives people in our community the ability to take an active role in government, quickly reporting problems and tracking them the whole way through the process of being fixed,” said Kenosha City Alderperson, Theodore Ruffalo.

SeeClickFix reinforces a concept of the Broken Window Theory – when small problems arise and are resolved in a timely manner, larger problems can be avoided. It also allows for anonymity of reporting as a way to encourage more people to report issues.

See – Citizens observe non-emergency issues in their neighborhood.

Click – They report these issues via the website or smartphone application at http://www.seeclickfix.com/kenosha.

Fix – Associates of the city resolve the issue.

Citizens can now track an issue to see when it is resolved, search for issues that have been fixed, and receive e-mail alerts when new issues are reported.

The three basic principles of SeeClickFix:

1. Empowerment  – SeeClickFix allows anyone to report and track non-emergency issues anywhere in the world via the internet. This empowers citizens, community groups, media organizations, and governments to take care of and improve their neighborhoods.
2. Efficiency — Two heads are better than one, and 300 heads are better than two. It is impossible for the government to be in all places at all times. This site will make it easy and fun for everyone to see, click, and fix a problem.
3. Engagement — Citizens who take the time to report even minor issues and see them fixed are likely to become more involved in their local communities. This practice is known as a self-reinforcing loop.

SeeClickFix is about communities collaborating to get results via the internet. How many times have you observed an issue in your neighborhood and thought “Is anyone ever going to fix that?” Here’s your chance to do something about it. Meet SeeClickFix.

To read more information about this new software, see an earlier KenoWi article here:  SeeClickFix Software Approved.