Hi Everyone,

I have completed my door to door visits for the entire 1st ward. I have been to every house in the 1st ward (I may have missed a few including apartments) over the past 7 weeks. The 1st ward has 7 districts and I covered 1 district per week. The feedback and support has been overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic.

As you may know, the Commission had appointed me to the Economic Development Board a couple of months ago. I have been able to understand the big picture issues from the Economic Development Board. Going door to door has given me the insight on the day to day issues faced by the residents of the 1st ward.

I was able to discuss both the issues and the possible solutions with the residents. At lot of the questions that I received were like “when will this sidewalk issue addressed, ” when will the leaf pickup issue be resolved, “where can I get information on sexual predators living in Mt. Lebanon”, etc. Given my Information Technology background, my recommendation is to implement an online system where (i) a resident can log an issue and the Municipality can respond on when the issue will be addressed (i.e. the resident will know that their sidewalk issue will be resolved on a certain date that may even be a couple of months out), (ii) post all information on line such as deer culling policies, information on sexual predators, etc and (iii) even broadcast commission meetings on the web. The beauty of an online system is that it is available 24×7 and the residents can get the feedback/update at their convenience.

In my opinion, the best solutions come from the residents and we need to have a way to encourage submission of ideas and solutions online to the Commission. This will improve the two way communication between the Commission and the residents and will improve the customer satisfaction of the residents.

I would love to hear from you on solutions to issues faced in Mt. Lebanon along with ideas to improve communication between the Commission and the residents. Thanks.

Raja