Flashes of Panic

The City of Medford has dramatically improved their website since I last complained. It’s not perfect; I can find out how to recycle a television with only two clicks from the front page, but I need to make at least one good guess. First, I click “Recycling Information,” but then I need to try “Frequently Asked Questions” to find out that I need to buy a $20 recycling sticker and arrange pick-up of the stickered television. I discovered that only after trying “What can be recycled?”, “Ten Ways to be a ‘Trash Terminator’”, and “Household Hazardous Waste” unsuccessfully, plus a diversion into the Public Works Department’s “Trash Talk” page.

They’re definitely improving, and this new page is about fifty times more useful to me as a Medford resident than the old page. (I was able to print a schedule of recycling days, for example; I spent all of 2006 putting out the bins based on whether I’d done it last week and whether the neighbors did.) I’m still the number one search-engine hit for “medford parking sticker” and number two for “medford parking permit,” though, and that question still isn’t answered anywhere on the city site.

Now Playing: You’re Not Very Well from Some Friendly by The Charlatans

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