GOLF MANOR (6/6/2024) – I want to apologize to anyone that has had difficulty accessing the administration building over the past week. We received more than one complaint that no one was answering the door during office hours, which mystified me personally.

As I investigated I was assured by staff that during the times in question someone was always present. I was also told that if, for whatever reason, someone was unable to answer the door, an auto-attendant  would activate, allowing the individual at the door to select a department to directly call or leave a message– and that no such messages had been received.

The auto-attendant is programmed to allow the person at the door to directly call whichever department they are seeking, such as police, maintenance, administration, etc. — if no one answers the doorbell.

I proceeded to test the system myself to see what the experience with the auto attendant was like. I found that while the auto attendant did indeed activate, the keypad one uses to select a department did not. That is, the doorbell itself works, and if no one answers it DOES go to the auto attendant, whereupon one hears a message instructing them to pick which department they would like to directly contact. BUT when the visitor presses the keypad to make the selection, nothing happens. It turns out there was a software issue that was preventing the keypad from working.

It was a simple fix once the technical issue was identified, we had it operating correctly within minutes.

I’ve instructed the administration that moving forward all public facing protocols should be experienced-tested by at least one human “walk through” test, in person, to verify that such protocols are actually operating as intended. And when there is a repeated complaint, to do the same walk-through again to rule out issues like this.

I’ll be working with the administration and council to do what we can to improve the experience one has interfacing with the technologies the village uses. As more and more of the infrastructure of our society becomes automated, it is increasingly important that we focus on the human experience of interfacing with these technologies, which are meant to serve, not disable, disconnect or otherwise frustrate our connection to one another.

I wanted to make sure the residents who experienced the issue with access to the building got an apology, as well as an explanation of the problem, what we’ve done to fix it and to hopefully reduce the occurrence of such issues in the future. If you ever have issues with access to the building during office hours, please let me know, it’s YOUR building!

Thank you for your service to one another and the village. Its an honor to be your Mayor.

Stefan Densmore

Mayor, Village of Golf Manor