Albany stopping use of online program to report city problems after court ruling

Albany is suspending its use of an online problem-reporting portal after an appeals court decision found that it represents legal notice requiring the city to address the issues.

The city announced on Wednesday that it won’t use the SeeClickFix program. This online portal allows people to report nonemergency issues like potholes, code violations and illegal dumping.

However, a lawsuit brought by a motorcyclist who crashed because of what he says was a problem in the road found the city was responsible for fixing the problem because he had reported it through SeeClickFix.

The man who brought the lawsuit lost control of his motorcycle in July 2019 on Lark Street. The city had repaired a water main break about two months prior to the accident. The Department of General Services had received a number of complaints about a defect in the road near the area where the motorcyclist crashed.

Some of these complaints were reported through the SCF system, according to the Court of Appeals decision.

The city argued that those complaints did not fulfill the legal definition of written notice, and that it has governmental immunity. The Court of Appeals disagreed and sided with the motorcyclist.

“Indeed, the SCF system was the City’s sole process for recording road defect reports, including each defect’s reported location and the date and time each report was received by DGS, and the system did not route such reports through any third party, consistent with the policy underlying the prior written notice requirement,” the justices said in the decision.

The city released a statement saying (they) won’t use the program for now.

“As a result of the decision, we are working to determine how best to balance the needs of our residents and the legal requirements when utilizing the program, which is why we are deactivating SeeClickFix effective immediately.”

Residents are asked to call 518-434-CITY (2489) to report non-emergency issues.