These days, tech-savvy cities offer residents smartphone apps to document quality-of-life troubles.
 
If you live in San Jose, Glendale or certain parts of Los Angeles, you can point your camera phone at your neighborhood problem, snap a picture, type a description and hit send. The app forwards your GPS coordinates, along with the picture and description, to a city official who can arrange a fix.
 
It's faster, easier and -- ideally -- cheaper than dialing.
 
Los Angeles as a whole is a little slow in embracing service via smartphone apps. The city encourages residents to call its 311 request system to report problems, but budget cuts have slashed 311 line staffing. It's gone from 24/7 operation to one that operates only from 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. weekdays - making it harder for residents to file complaints at their own convenience.
 
That makes the smartphone app all the more useful.
 
So far, two councilmen -- Paul Krekorian and Eric Garcetti -- have embraced service-by-app options. Constituents in those East Valley and Hollywood area districts can upload photos directly to the council staff, who then refer the service requests to the right departments.
 
The Reseda Neighborhood Council is also experimenting with an app called CitySourced, which is used by Garcetti's office and the cities of San Jose and Glendale.

The council had been urging residents to call in reports of graffiti, abandoned vehicles, potholes and other quality-of-life problems as part of its Keep Reseda Beautiful project. They got only a handful of reports until the council began using CitySourced. In four weeks, residents filed 200 reports.
 
"You have to use the tools the public is using," said Nani Shakhed, who handles the council's outreach, forwarding the reports to the appropriate city departments.
 
"It takes me one minute to report graffiti (with the app) versus 11 to 15 minutes waiting on hold with 311. How many people are willing to sit on the line?"
 
CitySourced is pitching its app today at the Congress of Neighborhood Councils. The app allows Angelenos to upload problem reports from all over the city, but unless someone is monitoring the reports - such as a council office or neighborhood council - there's no guarantee the complaints will be acted upon.
 
CitySourced founder Jason Kiesel said the goal is to work with the city to automate customer service requests - from smartphone directly to work order, with as little human labor as possible.
 
Based on other cities' experiences, Kiesel said a self-service app can cut the cost-per-report to less than $1, compared with $5 per request submitted by phone.
 
With L.A.'s tight budget and growing demand for quality-of- life fixes, self-service may be the best way to ensure residents get service.