Summertime means summer permits! Using CityGrows for online permitting and licensing for local governments
Summer is prime time for local governments! There are block parties to approve, fish to be caught, beach parking stickers to issue, boat moorings to assign, park grills to reserve, and much more. Which of these summer activities does your town require permits or licenses for? And how many of them are you offering online?
Unfortunately, many cities and towns are having trouble digitizing all their summer forms and processes.
Too many government employees have to spend their time doing tedious data entry and dealing with paper forms, when they could be out working in their communities, with your constituents.
When constituents have to come in person to get a license, or download and mail a handwritten or home- printed form, the work of data entry has to get done by local government staff. And a form is just usually the first step of an internal process.
In some places we’ve seen block party applications that have to be walked around from one department to another (or even brought to multiple city buildings!), until every required department has reviewed and signed off on it. If the paper form gets misplaced, or someone is away from their desk, then the license doesn’t get granted. And there’s no easy way to check the status of an application when it could be on anyone’s desk, or stuck in someone’s email inbox….
Sometimes each office has to do its own data entry…the Parks Department may have one system they need to enter all the data into, the Fire Department might have a different one, and every other department has its own database. Both staff and constituents regularly complain about the inefficiencies.
Luckily, there’s a better way.
The city of Santa Monica, CA confronted many of these same issues with their block party application process.
They had identified the importance of building community cohesion and civic engagement. Making sure that neighbors knew each other isn’t just a feel-good value but contributes to safety, disaster preparedness, and overall well-being. Hosting block parties can improve neighborhood connectectness- but the paper process to get the approval to close a residential street for a neighborhood block party was incredibly difficult.
Santa Monica set out to make the process more user-friendly, with help from CityGrows. We’re proud to announce the launch of their new online block party permit process!
A process this complex is a pain to handle on paper. Getting in-person approvals from Traffic Management, Police, Fire Department, and other offices made it time-consuming to get a permit approved.
But with CityGrows, the approvals move along smoothly and transparently, so constituents can know exactly where they are in the process. If you’re a Santa Monica resident and want to have a block party, it’s a major improvement. And if you work in local government in Santa Monica, it’s going to make life easier.
Julie Rusk, Santa Monica’s Chief of Civic Wellbeing, praised the new process: “We know how important it is for neighbors get to know each other and what better way to do that than have a party! Santa Monica decided to make it easier by putting the permits on line. Thanks to CityGrows for making it happen in time for summer parties!”
