Follow Denver's example

I recently saw the newscast about the mayor of Denver, who initiated a program to streamline many city services (“Denver mayor talks traffic, Amazon’s HQ2 and speedy city service on ‘CBS This Morning,’ ” Nov. 13). It apparently has been successful using city employees instead of outside consultants and saved the city about $20 million.

It brought to mind a recent experience I had in Baltimore. I needed a permit to close off a few parking spaces for a moving truck. I called the city and was told how to get it done. When I arrived at Holliday Street, I was told my instructions were incorrect and I needed to go to another room in the building. When I reached the room I was told the person would need to speak with her supervisor as she knew nothing about the issue. Fifteen minutes later, I was told I was in the wrong building and needed to go to Redwood Street and waited another 15 minutes for the person to return with an address.

I asked for a phone number to verify I was going to the correct person, which took another 15 minutes. I went into the hall to call and was told the office did not handle a request of this nature. At this point, I called my city councilman who arranged for the appropriate signage in minutes.

A rather mundane request took over one hour to accomplish. I hope our mayor is in touch with the mayor of Denver to deal with the inefficiency that costs time, money and is a black eye in dealing with the city of Baltimore.