It took me awhile to realize the garbage wasn’t being picked up at a house in my neighborhood, so I’m not sure how long it had been rotting in the August sun.

My neighbor noticed the garbage long before I did, and complained to the health department. A week passed and still the heaping pile remained on the curb.

For some reason the garbage trucks just kept passing the pile, week after week.

It was the perfect chance to try out the city’s new online complaint center. I call it that; the city calls it the InterLinc A.C.T.I.O.N. Center, which stands for Acting with Citizens To Improve Our Neighborhoods.

You go to the city-county Web site, www.lincoln.ne.gov, and click on the button on the right that says “Service Request.” Then follow the instructions. For me, that meant explaining a huge pile of garbage had been rotting and stinking up the block for weeks.

From there, you can fill out a form to get e-mailed updates on the status of your complaint. Or, if you’re like me and are a city hall reporter who wants to remain anonymous to make sure your complaint is treated just like everybody else’s (no better, no worse), you can monitor the status yourself with a tracking number and access code.

A week after filing my complaint, the garbage was still on the curb, and I was getting increasingly impatient, so I went back to the Web site to see what was up.

I learned that two days after I filed my complaint, the case had been assigned to the health department, which notified the property owner to clean up the mess. But by law, the property owner had to be given a week before the city would do it for them.

That calmed me down. And it didn’t require 10 phone calls to various city departments to try to find someone who knew something.

Finally, 10 days after I filed my complaint, the garbage was gone. I don’t know whether the property owner or city did it, but it hasn’t returned so far.

So while I can’t speak for everyone else who’s used the system, I’m a satisfied customer.

And while you’re on InterLinc …

Ever wonder what those bond issues are that show up on ballots every once in awhile?

Perhaps you’ve wondered exactly what you’re authorizing when you vote “yes.”

Now you can find out. The city has an online explanation of what voters bought last year when they so generously approved a $10 million stormwater bond issue.

Oh, sure, the media tried to explain where the money would go, but it’s hard to illustrate things like “master planned basins.”

So the public works department put together a virtual tour of the stormwater projects under way or planned, with photos and video clips of project managers describing what they’re doing.

You can get a nice view of the renovations that took place in the underworld below Ninth and N.

During a moderate rain, the 8-by-7-foot-wide, 1920-era storm drain fills with up to two feet of water, with enough rushing through to fill Memorial Stadium with a foot of water every six minutes.

That’s why it was somewhat bothersome to look up and see cracks of daylight in the limestone and concrete storm drain and look down and see a 2-foot-deep hole in the bottom of the culvert. None of that was visible to the drivers above, oblivious to the potential cave-in below. But it’s all been fixed now.

Nicole Fleck-Tooze, special projects administrator for the public works department, said the idea was to report back to voters on how the city is spending those dollars.

To see it, go to the city’s Web site (www.lincoln.ne.gov) and enter the keyword “virtual.”

You’ve got to admit…

The city has a darn good Web site. You can buy a Husker game parking ticket, pay your parking ticket(s), find out why that street is closed, see Lancaster County’s most wanted criminals, and see how many runs the Fire Department went on yesterday.

The Web site is indispensable to me, with all the reports and agendas online and even video of past meetings. For example, one day after Monday’s meeting I was able to go online and replay the council meeting so that I could write the following:

In defense of the firefighters

Bob Reynolds sat through a four-hour City Council meeting Monday so he could give Councilman Jon Camp a bit of a tongue-lashing during the “open microphone” session at meeting’s end.

The retired 35-year firefighter asked Camp to substantiate his comments in last week’s column, where he suggested some Lincoln firefighters exaggerated their role at Ground Zero to “elevate themselves.”

“Just how do you think they were trying to elevate themselves?” Reynolds asked Camp, looking him in the eye.

He said members of the federal urban search-and-rescue team were elevated the moment they signed up to be trained to respond to national disasters.

“Mr. Camp, I would like you to explain to me how you came to the conclusion that their work at Ground Zero was exaggerated and for what purpose they would want to use it to elevate themselves,” he said. “I am beginning to think that your political ambitions are clouding your use of common sense.”

This is the third time Reynolds has challenged Camp and defended firefighters during the public portion of the council meetings. And he promised to return, if necessary, saying, “As long as I’m around, I will do my best to make sure that a seat on the council is not used as a personal agenda pulpit.”

Camp did not respond to Reynolds.

Quote of the week

“This is part of our continued process to draft people to provide public comment.” — Councilman Jonathan Cook, after Camp gently coaxed a school official into explaining the school board’s opposition to a city financing scheme.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.