Cedar Park residents can now serve as the eyes and ears for city officials through a new, free mobile phone application.

CP Connect, announced Dec. 13 during the City Council meeting and unveiled the next morning, works on all major smartphone devices—including the latest Apple, Android and Windows units—and allows residents to submit pictures, videos and audio recordings of nonemergency complaints such as a road maintenance issues.

"This uses smartphone technology to improve the lives of citizens," said Jennie Huerta, Cedar Park media and communications manager.

The "snap, send and mend" method enables residents to record the problem for city officials while the phone's navigation system tracks the user's location. Residents can modify that location, if necessary, to best reflect the general area of the issue, she said.

"It gives us a general reference point of the problem, and then we can find it," Huerta said.

HOW IT WORKS

– Go to the application market on your smart phone (e.g. App Store, Google Play)

– Search for "Cedar Park Connect" or "Cedar Park"

– Download application (it's free)

– Open and select "Submit a Report" and then select "Create New Media"

– Select whether to shoot new photo, video or audio; capture media and submit

– Map location either by using GPS or dragging and dropping pin

– Select category under "Issue: Please Select ..." to identify nature of complaint

– Enter contact information (name and email address)

– Submit problem

City staff oversees all submissions during regular business hours. They will acknowledge each submission before forwarding it to the appropriate staff member. Another notification will be sent once the matter has been resolved.

Residents can also access submitted reports in the "My City" tab to see whether city officials have already been made aware of the matter. If so, users can "vote up" an issue to raise the priority level.

While the settings can be adjusted to allow for anonymous submissions, city staff recommended against doing so in case the user needs contacted to learn more information about the issue.

This system is not in use by any other Central Texas city, Huerta said, or any of Cedar Park's benchmark cities, which city officials often measure up against Cedar Park. The system cost $2,000 upfront and $6,000 annually to maintain.