It will soon become a lot easier to report broken drinking fountains, malfunctioning sprinklers, litter and other problems in San Diego city parks thanks to an expansion of the popular Get It Done tipster app.
City officials say they will also add a special quick-response code for reporting illegal off-leash dogs at parks the city operates jointly with local schools — a controversial problem that officials have struggled to address.
It will be easier to report parks problems — and get them fixed more quickly — because Get It Done now allows tipsters to report 46 specific kinds of park problems, instead of just submitting general parks complaints.
The new feature was added to the Get It Done website in February, and city officials say they will extend the feature to the better-used smartphone app in late summer or early fall. More than 75% of Get It Done complaints come from smartphones.
Another new feature is complaint-specific estimates for how long a fix is likely to take. City officials say this boosts transparency, sets reasonable expectations and may deter people from repeatedly issuing the same complaint.
The city hopes to use data from the new category-specific complaints to make the time estimates more precise and reliable, said Conrad Wear, a city program manager overseeing the parks portion of Get It Done.
He said the QR code for off-leash incidents will allow the kind of fast responses needed to disincentivize such activity, which often leads to dog poop on fields where children play.
The upgrades to Get It Done come just after the app marked its 10th anniversary this spring. Since 2016, Get It Done has received 3.5 million complaints, and the smartphone app has been downloaded 275,000 times.
City officials say the tool has streamlined the reporting of complaints from residents about homeless encampments, graffiti, illegal dumping, abandoned vehicles, flooding and many other problems.
The reports are highly accurate because residents take pictures of the problems they see, and the satellite technology in their phones provides the precise locations of the problems to officials.
The city receives more than 1,000 complaints a day, about 700 of them related to city parks.
“Get It Done has dramatically improved city operations over the past 10 years,” said Alex Hempton, the city’s chief innovation officer.
A new analysis of parks complaints since the start of 2025 found a sharp disparity between San Diego’s nine City Council districts, with the lion’s share coming from District 2 – Point Loma, Ocean Beach and Clairemont – and District 3, which includes downtown, Hillcrest and North Park.
The number of complaints from District 2 was 3,255 and the number from District 3 was 2,666. That compares to 664 from District 6, which includes Mira Mesa and University City, and District 8, which includes Logan Heights, Otay Mesa and San Ysidro.
The leading parks for complaints are Balboa Park, some shoreline parks, NTC Park at Liberty Station, Ward Canyon Neighborhood Park and Presidio Park.
The top parks complaints since the start of 2025, in order, have been graffiti, illegal dumping, malfunctioning sprinklers, tree hazards, off-leash dogs, litter, broken drinking fountains, damaged playground equipment, restroom problems, brush management and lighting issues.
Wear said providing estimates of repair times is a key move for the city.
On litter complaints, the city estimates five days. Other estimates are 20 days for sprinklers, 30 days for drinking fountains and 45 days for park equipment.
For restrooms, the city estimates five days for supply problems like lack of toilet paper but 15 days for repairs like a broken sink.
The average time to fix a problem overall is roughly 11 days, and half of all complaints are resolved within two weeks, Wear said.