Urban managers and legislators are faced with the task of ensuring that policy decisions really represent citizens' needs. One method of communicating with the public by government was the creation of the Community Representatives Office (CRO) by the city of Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1973. This position is similar to the office of the ombudsman found in Scandinavia and other European countries. In this paper, the author evaluates the complaint system used by the CRO in Greensboro in terms of its responsiveness to citizens' needs. Chapter I presents a history of the ombudsman concept and traces the history of the concept in Greensboro. Chapter II examines the ways in which complaint findings from the CRO can make Greensboro city government more responsive to citizens' concerns. Chapter III treats priorities and policy decisions as influenced by the complaint system. Conclusions presented in chapter IV indicate that: (1) the role of the ombudsman on a local level can influence the decision-making process, (2) physical location of the ombudsman or complaint agency is important, (3) length of time a city has had a particular form of local government appears immaterial to the implementation of a complaint agency, and (4) image of government agencies is affected by having a built-in mechanism whereby the rate of satisfaction for complaints is measured. (Author/AV)