Citizens' Service Bureau (CSB)

"But the wheel that does the squeaking, Is the one that gets the grease."

True enough, but it is also true that it's hard to fix a problem if you don't know about it. For problems in the city we fortunately have the Citizens' Service Bureau (CSB). CSB's purpose is "to effectively and efficiently register and route city service requests, answer citizen requests for information, and provide City departments with statistics as needed." I recently had the opportunity to test it.

For some time now, on the northeast corner of Jamieson and Fyler there have been wires hanging from an electric poll, bundled up into a mess, and duct taped to the poll -- hardly a safe nor elegant solution to the problem. So recently, I snapped a photo of the poll and submitted it to CSB's twitter account.

CSB responded promptly that it wasn't a city problem, but an AmerenUE problem. Rather than leaving it at just that, they tagged Ameren who in turn replied.

Once I sent the address they replied with a direct message.

And within a few days the work was completed.

Thanks to CMS and Ameren for quickly addressing this. I know it's minor but if those wires were hot, it wouldn't have been minor long.

...Now, who is going to contact CSB about the roads around McCausland and Southwest?

Cheers,
Seth