New use for your smartphone: Complain to the county

Want to report a clogged storm drain or a dog running loose in your neighborhood?

Soon you’ll be able to do that with just a few clicks on your smartphone.

Beaufort County is developing a mobile application that will allow residents to report problems, which will then be routed to and tracked by the appropriate county agency.

Robert Gecy, county applications programmer, recently told the Beaufort County Council Community Services Committee that the app is expected to be ready for download by the end of the summer.

“This has been my baby for about a year,” he said of the app. “It’s been in the works for quite some time.”

Compatible with both iPhone and Android platforms, the app will allow users to report about 15 types of issues, Gecy said.

Users can take a photo — for example, a picture of a neighbor dumping trash or grass clippings into the storm drain — and the issue will be “routed to appropriate department,” he said.

The app will then provide a “real-time connection to the designated (personnel) from each department as these reports come in,” Gecy said.

Local towns and cities such as Bluffton and Beaufort will be able to tap into the app in cases where issues would be better resolved by municipal agencies.

“We want to make this so everyone can participate,” Gecy said. “It’s not just for Beaufort County; it’s for every municipality under us.”

Monica Spells, assistant county administrator for civic outreach and engagement, said Beaufort County will likely be the first county in the state to implement this type of technology.

Beaufort County Councilman Brian Flewelling joked that the app could put council members out of work.

“That’s 90 percent of what we do — respond to complaints and point people to the right place,” he said.

In addition to rolling out the new app, the county is working to overhaul its website, bcgov.net.

“This is the face of the county — wherever you are, the website is your first impression,” Spells said.

The goal of the new site is to “take our communications to a new level” and “better engage our citizens on a day-to-day basis.”

Josh Riley, county web design and content manager, said the “current website does a few things well,” but certainly has room for improvement.

“It is not mobile friendly, and it is not touchscreen friendly,” he said of the site.

With the new site, users “will have totally different menu system that will be mobile-friendly, … and it will work equally well across all the ranges of devices,” he said.

The site will also include a new photo gallery feature that will allow residents and visitors to post pictures of scenic parts of the county.

The gallery will serve as “a way to show the beauty and uniqueness of our county,” Riley said.

This story was originally published July 5, 2016 at 3:36 PM with the headline "New use for your smartphone: Complain to the county."