The City of Long Beach launched the "Go Long Beach" Smartphone App, becoming the largest city in Southern California to offer a citywide Smartphone App.  

With literally just a few clicks on a Smartphone, the community now has an innovative way to report potholes, graffiti, sidewalk damage, and other service needs to the City. The service requests will be forwarded to work crews, who will respond to them faster than requests made by telephone or e-mail. 

"The 'Go Long Beach' App helps keep our community safe, clean and beautiful," Mayor Bob Foster said. "This tool literally puts local government in the hands of the community at any time of the day or night, 24/7, and it will help enhance our residents' connection and interaction with their City."

Once downloaded onto a Smartphone, the free "Go Long Beach App" makes it easier for people to quickly report problems to be fixed, instead of waiting to locate a phone number and make a call, write a detailed e-mail, or even remember to report the problem at all.

"Any time a person with a Smartphone notices a problem anywhere in the City, they can now use the Go Long Beach App to provide a picture, description and precise GPS coordinates of the problem to be fixed," said Curtis Tani, Director of Technology Services.

The initial service categories are graffiti, graffiti in parks, broken water fountains in parks, potholes, illegally dumped items, missing street signs, sidewalk damage, and overgrown weeds on private property. More categories will be added based on the need and requests.

"The City of Long Beach already has great response times for cleaning up graffiti and other problems that cities face," said Michael Conway, Director of Public Works. "The 'Go Long Beach'" App will help us be even more responsive, because the quicker we know about a problem, the quicker we can fix it."

iPhone users can download the "Go Long Beach" App from the App Store; Android users will be able to download the App from the Android Market when its released in December; and Blackberry users can access the service from the Mobile Web App at www.golbcity.com, which is also available to anyone with Internet access.

For a video demonstrating the "Go Long Beach" App, which is available on the City's YouTube Channel, visit www.youtube.com/LongBeachCityCA.