Dear Friends & Neighbors,
One of the helpful tools for anyone who seeks help with a problem in Monterey County is a free app for your phone. County of Monterey uConnect can be downloaded onto your phone where it allows you to access a range of county services such as registering to vote, storm preparedness supplies, animal services, recycling information, watching live streaming of county government and more.
Many of these features are found on the county’s website. The website, which is due for redesign, can be difficult to navigate. uConnect lets you avoid wandering through the website looking for helpful information such as road closures. Clicking on the uConnect road closure link brings up a map with icons showing which roads are closed and why.
My favorite is the Report an Issue feature. With this feature, you can report an illegal dumping site, graffiti, dead animal, streetlights, tree removal, weed removal and other issues directly to county Public Works. I use it primarily for potholes. Many times, when I am driving through North County, I come across a pothole. I’ll stop, take a picture and submit it with my name and contact information. Within a couple of days, the pothole is usually filled.
For potholes, it is important to report them as quickly as possible. They get bigger. The bigger they get the more difficult it is to fix them. Whether it is a dead animal, trash or a pothole, the first people likely to notice these isn’t the county. It is the people who drive our roads.
uConnect has been around since June 2018. It only takes up about 30 megabytes on your device. It is a bit underutilized as it has only been downloaded about 2,300 times. About half the people give it five stars while the other half only one star. Its helpfulness depends on your expectations and use. For me, it’s primarily to report a problem, and that deserves five stars for convenience and efficiency.
I’m discovering new features from time to time and am hopeful that new additions will be even more helpful. As we move deeper into technology, uConnect and other tools are going to become more prevalent. One of those is Alert Monterey County, which provides quick critical information in a variety of situations, such as severe weather, unexpected road closures, missing persons and evacuations of buildings or neighborhoods. You can click here to sign up for Alert Monterey County.
County of Monterey uConnect is available at the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. You can click here for more information and links to download.
As always, don't hesitate to reach out to my office for assistance. You can reach us at 831-755-5022 or district2@co.monterey.ca.us.
Sincerely,
Glenn Church
District 2 Supervisor
P.S. With the stormy weather we experienced this last week and weekend, I wanted to share some resources you can follow to get the latest updates and information:
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