Beginning in 2025, Shorewood switched its citizen reporting mechanism from SeeClickFix to Citizen Request Tracker® (CRT). The city’s new website software includes the CRT component at no extra cost. The cost savings will be $5k+ per year and removes a “citizen facing” product in favor of one much more controlled.
- The change proposal came with some scrutiny by former council member Zerby. He has been a strong advocate for SeeClickFix. His main point about the change was submissions and comments will be less visible to the public than they are on SeeClickFix. Council member Sanschagrin asked if there were ways to compensate for the loss of transparency.
- The city’s communications coordinator Wilson stated that for public visibility, he could do a quarterly report which could also include response times. There was no direction from the council so it’s not clear if quarterly reporting will be made available. He explained that SeeClickFix notified subscribers of submissions, and allowed residents to view and comment on each other’s reports. Some closed tickets could be reopened by residents for further action. CRT would help to prevent these situations.
- In response to a question regarding response time from Sanschagrin, public works director Morreim assured the council that city staff works diligently to address issues as they are reported. Sanschagrin asked if city staff would acknowledge receipt of a ticket immediately.
- Morreim explained that on average in 2021, it took 131 days to resolve an issue submitted via SeeClickFix. The average was sixteen days in 2024. He noted that it only takes one day to acknowledge receipt of the requests.
The change comes with a tradeoff—the city benefits from cost savings but residents lose access to a space that promotes transparency and community engagement. They also lose the convenience of a SeeClickFix app on their phones. A possible solution to accountability and visibility could be a public dashboard or some other alternative–and an app–developed by the city.
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