Who do you call when a street light is out or someone has sprayed graffiti on your fence?

Cities offer many services: police, fire, sanitation, water, and the list keeps going. It is what we expect of cities; otherwise, why would we bother creating them or living in one? Garland's range of services equals any large city and exceeds many of them.

When we suddenly find ourselves needing to contact someone about any of those services, we must explore a labyrinth of departments and numbers to get to the individual that can actually help us. Garland simplifies that process to a very large degree by having a main number that can generally get us exactly where we need to be: (972) 205-2000.

That works during normal business hours. Othertimes it is necessary or more convenient if we can simply call the department we need directly. To assist that effort, we've updated my website by adding a list of commonly-needed phone numbers for different city departments and services under the Contacts tab. Look there anytime you can't remember or can't find the number for a particular issue or department. While the list should cover the majority of issues, numbers for help with other questions or problems are often listed on the various departments' individual webpages at the City of Garland website.

The list was compiled by Dorothy White, Public and Media Affairs Manager, with updates by Felisa Conner, Neighborhood Vitality Manager.