The City of Topeka has appointed Monique Glaudeˊ to the newly created Ombudsman position, while also continuing to serve as the Director of Community Engagement. The Ombudsman will serve as an independent and impartial office where citizens can get help with city services and report their issues with city government. The Ombudsman’s office will allow citizen’s to find answers, ask a question, or submit a SeeClickFix service request. The City of Topeka Ombudsman’s office will provide every effort to respond quickly, succinctly, accurately, and in a friendly manner to citizen requests, inquiries for answers to questions, internal information about policies, practices, and procedures and provide citizens with the capabilities to perform business. Inquiries will be provided to constituents within 3 business days.
“Navigating local government can be tricky for those who don’t know where to start, I’m excited to help our neighbors in the City of Topeka with any issues or concerns that they have,” said Monique Glaudeˊ, Ombudsman for the City of Topeka. “The Ombudsman office will be an essential tool to helping our community have a partner to guide them through city government and any problems that they’re facing.”
The Ombudsman’s office should be the first point of contact for constituents. The goal of the Ombudsman’s office is to foster closer, more effective, and efficient working relationships, to better anticipate and meet citizen needs, and to develop a more detailed working understanding of what citizens want, expect, and need from those who serve them. The Ombudsman’s Office provides many benefits to the public including:
- Enables citizens the opportunity to voice their concerns and make inquiries.
- Accept, track, and manage service requests.
- Record all action taken on each service request.
- Investigate a complaint against a city department, official or employee of the City of Topeka, independently and impartially, and on a confidential manner, to the extent possible as provided by law.
- Work with a department to resolve a problem when an investigation shows that the department has acted contrary to law, unreasonably or unfairly, or has made a mistake.
- Make recommendations to departments for administrative or policy changes, when appropriate.
- Answer questions relating the City government or refer the person to a suitable agency or entity for answers.
The public can contact the Ombudsman’s office at ombudsman@topeka.org or by calling (785) 368-3947. The Ombudsman’s office is located at the Holliday Building, but will eventually move to City Hall.