News from Patrick Flynn

It’s early summer in Anchorage, which means residents are sprucing up our community.  The city helps out in the process by planting and hanging flowers (crews were out last week), maintaining parks and sweeping streets, among other things.  The latter process can take a while and I’ve heard from a neighbor asking how to get her street in the queue.  I had the same concern last fall and used the city web site to file a request which, I’m pleased to say, was quickly addressed.  If your street needs a cleaning try surfing to the Street Maintenance web site and clicking on the “Street Maintenance Feedback Form.”

On the MOA web front I had the opportunity to sit down with the city’s Chief Information Officer, Fred Carpenter, to discuss a variety of IT issues.  Fred is an energetic, interesting guy who has worked for the city in a variety of capacities over many years.  One of the topics we discussed was Anchorage’s web site, which is pretty good but has a few quirks that trouble me.  First, the employee search function doesn’t seem to work very well and, second, the navigation is a bit clunky.  On the latter point, my understanding is that a good web site will guide a user to their preferred page within three clicks, which the existing site does not always accomplish.

Fortunately, Fred informed me that an initiative to revamp the site is underway so I’m looking forward to those changes.  If you have observed aspects of the web site that could use a little assistance please let me know, or send a note to Fred (his e-mail address is easy to find on the site!).

Regards,

Patrick