Waste to Send Fire Trucks to 911 Calls

Greg Harris calls it, I've been thinking this for years:

Former Cincinnati lawmaker Greg Harris said the fire union is 'playing the politics of fear-mongering' by using brownouts to keep budgets in check. Harris maintains the fire budget is about $20 million beyond what it should be anyway. He said it's a colossal waste of money to send a fire truck and an ambulance to virtually every 911 medical call." - WLWT Story

311 See Click Fix

There is a movement afoot to encourage citizen participation in correcting neighborhood problems. Some cities have a 311 number and some have developed iPhone applications whereby you can notify city departments about litter or maintenance issues. There is a general iPhone app called See Click Fix which affixes the photo to a geographic location and assembles the complaints onto a map. Then, what is supposed to happen is that a city worker pulls the data and sends it to the relevant department. Seems like there is a lot of potential here to get more power into the hands of the people regarding everyday annoyances.

Article in NY Times.

iBurgh, Pittsburgh's effort