Is a persistent pothole constantly threatening to disrupt your morning commute? Did you spot a dead tree branch dangling dangerously over a sidewalk in your neighborhood? Notice some unsightly graffiti at one of Warren’s parks?

It’s never been easier to report these type of problems, thanks to a new app launched by the Town of Warren.

Back in August of 2022, the Town Council approved an approximately $11,000 expenditure request from Town Manager Kate Michaud to enter into a contract with GOGov to purchase their Citizen Notification and Citizen Request Manager software, which is packaged into one app — Warren Connect, now available for Apple and Android devices (scan the QR code in this story).

The app is free and requires an email address in order to submit requests. Once signed up, you’ll be taken to a dashboard that includes many of the services available on the desktop website version of the Warren Town website, including information on municipal services, a schedule of meetings, the tax assessor’s map, and the Warren Police Department’s 4-1-1 tip line.

But the marquee feature of the app is the service request function, which allows users to provide a photo and a text description for a vast array of situations that DPW handles — and the list is extensive, including everything from violations like vandalism or illegal dumping, public landscaping that needs touched up, or requests to have a obstructions removed from a sidewalk.

“Residents now have the ability to take pictures of potholes or tree limbs that are concerning or pretty much anything that has to do with DPW and take a ticket and see its progress from start to finish,” said DPW Director Brian Wheeler.

That last part is important, he said, because users will be able to track when a job is accepted and when it is completed.

“It kind of gives them that instant gratification for people to see someone is listening to what they’re asking for,” he said.

Wheeler said that the app will also allow residents to be updated right away if there is a sudden road closure, or announce the scheduling of road construction, or if there is a delay in trash pickup or a parking ban during inclement weather.

“Residents can sign up for what kind of notifications they would like,” he said.

Town Manager Kate Michaud said that the app will help optimize DPW’s efficiency and better inform the town going forward when submitting budget requests, in addition to the immediate assistance it will provide to residents who want to see persistent issues be addressed and corrected.

“I think it's really going to help on our end because it'll help us to track what type of complaints or requests for service we're getting, if there's any hot spots or if there's any topics that we see more frequently than others,” she said. “Then also it's going to help us track how long it takes us to process those, so we'll be able to do our own analysis on the back end to see what our timelines are like for completing the task that we need to do, and then see how we can do it better and how we can improve those timelines.”

Community announcement module coming soon
The other part of the app would include a more comprehensive notification system, such as for municipal meetings that might be of interest to residents (such as a planning board meeting discussing a development in their neighborhood, for example).

Michaud said that she was unaware of any other municipalities in Rhode Island who have this type of a system built into an app. She said that the City of Boston has the “gold standard” of service request apps, and that Warren’s version is not that robust, it will at least provide a better sense of communication between residents and town officials working to serve them.

“It allows us to have a back and forth with the residents so that we can give them an update on what's going on and let them know when it's completed, so that people can see they are being listened to and that we are trying to address their needs,” she said. “And it’s not like they put in a request and then never hear from us again and have no idea if it's being addressed or not.”