The City of Tulsa wants your help solving "sticky" problems within city government.
A new Civic Innovation Fellowship will give six Tulsans six months to tackle a problem that city hall hasn’t figured out a fix for. For example, seven out of 10 people given a six-month extension to pay a municipal ticket end up with a bench warrant.
"That’s certainly not an outcome anybody wants, is to have a warrant. And so, that is the outcome that happens to most people that are given that extra time to pay," said Chief of Performance Strategy and Innovation James Wagner.
The problem will be in an area people interact with the city, like the municipal court failure to pay problem, permitting and licensing, or property maintenance ordinance compliance.
Wagner said these problems haven't been solved, but not for lack of trying.
"The difference here is the perspective of having people from the outside of city hall look at the same process would have, potentially, a different conclusion and a different solution," Wagner said.
Fellows will learn human-centered design and process streamlining principles being taught to some city employees.
"We’re just going to take the people that we’ve already trained in those practices and have them train or, you know, kind of walk through these processes with the fellows, and there won’t be any cost to us to do this other than just time," Wagner said.
People interested in the unpaid fellowship can fill out an online form by March 16. Fellows will be selected in the spring.
