MIDLAND, Texas — During Tuesday’s Midland City Council meeting, the city introduced two new innovative tools for Midlanders to use: SeeClickFix and AskJacky.
"The City of Midland has given a lot of attention and effort to communicate well with our citizens and to make sure that we are accessible as a city leadership to be able to address problems and concerns in the community," Midland Mayor Lori Blong said. "With SeeClickFix, we are able to provide an app-based solution for people to share concerns in the community, non-emergency concerns in the community and that comes directly to the city staff."
That concern -- whether it be about a pothole, graffiti, etc. -- is then turned into a ticket and alerts the staff.
The app also provides a way to track the concern as it progresses through the system with real time updates, while also seeing other requests other Midlanders made around the city.
"And then once the situation is resolved, then we're able to close the ticket and move forward," Mayor Blong said. "And so we believe this is a huge benefit to the city of Midland, for people to be able to communicate with concerns that they may have."
A year in the making, the app is available 24/7, that way even before and after the city offices close, citizens can let their voices be heard. People can also pay their water bill on the app.
Along with SeeClickFix, the city is taking advantage of the rise of artificial intelligence on their website.
"AskJacky is an AI powered chatbot on our website to help people more successfully navigate our website so that people can get on, find what they need on the website and move on more quickly," said Mayor Blong.
Its name inspired by the pumpjack, AskJacky hopes to help people navigate the website much easier.
"We have a very complex website because of all the different city services and permitting and everything that the city provides," Mayor Blong said. "So this helps people to more easily access what they need on our website and be able to move forward with whatever they're working on."
There’s already multiple requests in the system, including some from the mayor herself.
"I've used it to access my water bill and some questions that I had for my own home," Mayor Blong said. "And then I've also used it to submit a concern about a pothole and so both of those worked well for me and I'm excited, we know that it's new technology and so it may have concerns and issues to work out but in my experience it’s working well."
So next time someone comes across a pothole on the way to work, see it, click it and fix it.
The app is currently available on the Apple Store and Google Play Store, or simply on the city’s website.