LA council seeks accounting of storm-related 311 calls in First District

The City Council voted Friday to seek an accounting of service requests related to 311 calls for storm-related issues in the First District.

Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez introduced a motion in January following the rain and wind storms that hit the region.

Residents can use the city’s 311 system to ask for services such as repairing potholes and removing graffiti. During storms, residents can turn to 311 to address mudslides and fallen trees.

Issues cited by Hernandez include a lack of transparency around whether an issue has been fully addressed, and duplicate tickets regarding similar issues being closed with no explanation.

“What I heard over and over and is that the issues would be reported and never addressed,” Hernandez said during Friday’s meeting. “We know that our city departments work extremely hard to fill those needs. But we also know that the truth is our departments don’t have the funding or the staff power to consistently fulfill the volume of service requests that they receive.”

Hernandez added that “historically, wealthier, more well-resourced parts of our city have received a higher level of service than others.”

“A council office can also play an important role in helping to prioritize service requests,” Hernandez said.

The council called for the Information Technology Agency to report a list of all open service requests related to the storms in the First District — including a breakdown of categories of the cases, and the length of time they have been open. It also requested several departments to report on where the cases are in the process and potential roadblocks.

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