Apr 30 2008
Peoria Cares [Updated]
Dialing 494-CARE
“Hello, Mayor and City Council office.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought I was calling the Peoria Cares number.”
“He’s off today, so it rolls over to us.”
“Okay, well, I was wondering if there was a problem with the City’s website today; I can’t get it to load.”
“I can give you our I.S. department’s phone number. It’s 494-8100.”
“Thanks.”
Dialing 494-8100.
[something unintelligible]
“Hi is this the City of Peoria I.S. Department?”
“Yes it is.”
“Hi, I was referred to you by the Peoria Cares number. I was wondering if there was a problem with the City’s website; it doesn’t seem to be loading for me this morning.”
“Who is this?”
“C. J. Summers.”
“Are you with a company?”
“No, I’m just a citizen who wants to get some information from the City’s website and it won’t come up.”
“Hold on a second.”
[phone ringing 4 times]
“Your call is being answered by Audix. John [mumble-mumble] is not available….”
[Me hanging up phone, mumbling to myself] “Who cares?”
UPDATE: Mike King from the city called me after I posted this (and he left a comment, too) and helped me figure out what was wrong. Apparently it’s a problem with my ISP. Many thanks to Mike for his quick response! I also concur with other commentators that when Sean is manning the phone, you get great service at the Peoria Cares number. (Although, I’ll also point out that I didn’t get bad service from Sean’s fill-in, but rather from the person who answered the I.S. department’s line. Mike explained that they don’t usually get calls from citizens.)
Yeah … I hate it when Websites go down.
*ahem*
… And it loaded perfectly for me just a moment ago.
Well then it must be my connection, because it’s not loading for me. But that’s beside the point of the post.
OMG I called that number once when a person had vomited temporary signs all over Peoria. I got such a run-around from the operator that I remember smarting off to her about the “Peoria cares” name. I know, hard to believe.
Sorry you weren’t able to get through to the right person regarding the City’s website. As far as we know it has been up and working; however, if you can give us some details we would gladly look into it further. If you have any problems with the site please call PeoriaCARES and ask to be transfered to Mike or Rachel in IS. Thanks.
The PeoriaCARES number is awesome when you reach Sean. He usually mans the phones and is extremely helpful. When the call rolls into another office I have had nothing but grief.
Someone please remind me what PeoriaCARES is… a program, project.. what’s the goal?
If you think that is bad watch Public Access Programming on Tuesday afternoon and see the scroll of the City of Peoria. It still has Randy Oliver as City Manager and a few other mistakes. Plus nobody proofreads it evidently there are a lot of errors in it.
PeoriaCares is a number that Joe (or Joan) Citizen can call to make a complaint about code violations, weeds, cars, whatever without looking through the phone book for the right department. I have used it with excellent results. 494-2273.
BTW, The Peoria City site loaded for me. Maybe Billy could give them a hand if they stay on line too much. (ahem)
Also when you call the PeoriaCares number about a complaint, you receive a number for your complaint to be tracked to prevent any runaround that your complaint was lost in the system. Sean does an excellent job.
[...] returned a few days later to the same scenario when I recalled a post by CJ Summers about the Peoria Cares hotline… so I gave them a [...]