CPA Practice Advisor - 31

APPS WE LOVE

By Gail Perry, CPA, Editor-in-Chief

Cities & Local Government
WHAT'S THE FIRST thing you do when you find yourself in a new city or town?
Twenty-five or so years ago, you might ask someone for directions or look for a
local visitor's center as you enter the town. You could find the heart of the town
by looking for a courthouse or see if there's a street called "Main Street." You
might pick up a newspaper to see what's happening around town. Or, if you were
staying at a hotel, the desk clerk was probably your main source of information.
A printed city map would be a useful tool as well.
Today, you head to the apps on your phone.
There's always a maps app which probably got
you to this town in the first place and keeps you
from getting lost. From there, it's really up to the
city directors to ensure that their local resources
can be found. For some cities that will be done
through a city website. Many others have created
apps.
Mark Koziel, executive vice president, public
accounting at the AICPA, lives in North Carolina
and reports, "Town of Wake Forest and Town of
Morganton both are pretty good apps. I use both
to keep track of local happenings. Wake Forest
has a great communications director who drives

much of the content and connection and really
brings the app to life. I think that's necessary."
Start by searching for apps about your own
city or town on Google (or your search engine
of choice) and in the apps store. I live in Indianapolis, and an app search quickly directs me
to Visit Indy - the official travel guide from our
city's tourism bureau. There I can find a calendar
of current events around the city, recommendations for hotels and restaurants and attractions,
videos, coupons, a blog, and the ability to mark
favorites for future reference. The Visit Indy app
is operated by a company called Simpleview out
of Arizona (which recently merged with Tourism

Media) - the company operates over 800 tourism
apps around the world.
If you're a local, you might want a municipal
services app instead of a tourism app. East Peoria,
Illinois, for example, has an excellent app called
Access East Peoria. Here you'll find information
about local utilities, trash services, and code
enforcement, as well as community news and
events. The app is developed by PublicStuff which
publishes apps for dozens of other communities.
Similarly, a company called GOGovApps
produces apps for cities providing opportunities
to report potholes or nuisances, and open communication with the local government offices.
Apps include GoCoSprings for Colorado Springs,
CO, Carson City Connect for Carson City, NV, Go
Long Beach, for Long Beach, CA, and many more.
City of Burleson Texas is an app that provides
news, events, emergency notifications, city council contact information, public meeting agendas,
online payment options, trash pickup information, and much more. The app is an example of
apps created by CivicPlus, a company that creates
software platforms including apps for more than
3,500 cities in the U.S., Canada, and Australia.
So, if you're looking for local city information,
start with searches for apps. ■

AUGUST 2019 ■

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