AUBURN — A revamped city website would be key to the city keeping track of resident complaints, according to City Manager Glenn Aho.

Aho made a pitch for paying up to $30,000 to redo the city’s www.auburnmaine.org website, making it more modern, easier to maintain and better suited to Auburn residents. Councilors voted down the money for that new website at the Feb. 22 meeting.

“The more information we can put online, the fewer times they have to access a person,” Aho said. “That website would have done that. It would have given us a portal for citizen tracking.”

Aho said the city currently has no way to keep track of citizen complaints. Complaints come in via phone calls, e-mails, letters and face-to-face complaints. They are recorded and staffers try to solve them.

“But they may not go to the right person, and they may not be able to give a satisfactory answer,” Aho said. “Or the person may do a mass e-mail to people in several different departments. Then, they may get several different responses. Or, they may not get any.”

Aho said he wants the redesigned website to include a complaints area that would guide complaints, give them a tracking number and send them to the proper department.

“It’s not something that has to be used by citizens alone,” Aho said. “Staff would use the same system, making sure things get recorded and sent along.”

In the case of Public Works complaints, the system could generator a work order right away, he said.

The website redesign would modernize the city’s Internet presence, making other information easier to find and quicker to navigate.

Councilors said Monday that they might reconsider the matter.

“Let’s look at the positives to a new website,” Councilor Mike Farrell said. “No. 1, our site is very unfriendly, very hard to use and very aggravating. Right off the bat, we could make money by just having an accessible website for Parks and Recreation, just by making it easier for people to find programs and pay for them.”

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