A few weeks ago our family was at Chumash Park for flag football. I walked over to the play structure and in the distance I saw my younger boy playing with what looked like a big skateboard. I wondered where he got a skateboard. And then as I got closer I realized two things:
1. My eyesight, despite being LASIK-ed to perfection, is already getting worse because I’m getting old
2. My son was playing with a skateboard-sized chunk of metal bench.
Upon closer inspection, I realized that yes indeed, it was a giant chunk of the metal bench from the picnic table/bench combo that is standard to Agoura Hills parks. The kids were playing with these enormous tetanus risks. I told my son to put it down, and then resolved to Tell Somebody.
If you have children who play sports, chances are you have a lot of Sideline Time. You know, when you are just there, at the football/soccer/baseball field, or the basketball/tennis court, or the stands near the pool. Just there, not doing anything, maybe watching the game, maybe chatting with the other parents. I have packed my Sideline Bag with work, books, snacks, etc. to kill the time. On this day, I used some of that time to report the offending broken bench.
And I found this amazing thing: See Click Fix! I had heard that Agoura Hills introduced an app that you could use to report things that go wrong, and a little bit of Googling led me right to it!
Boop-beep-boop: I reported the broken bench. Someone responded right away “We’re looking into it.” Then a week later, boom, bench was gone. I created a free account and signed up to get emails from SCF, and now I get little messages every few days. Someone reports a broken streetlight BAM! Fixed. Someone sees a pile of trash illegally dumped on the side of the road BOOM! Hauled away.
It’s …like a miracle, really. I encourage you to check it out. Keep it classy, Agoura. Keep it classy.
Agoura Hills, everybody!
