STARKVILLE – Residents can sign up for a new, improved system to receive city alerts.
Information Technology Director Joel Clements said the system went live Wednesday, and anyone interested can sign up at the city’s website. More than 100 signed up on the first day, he said.
Users can elect to receive alerts for emergencies, general notifications (road closures, utility work, etc.), city events and parks events. They can choose to receive alerts by email, text, voice call or via a mobile app, Clements said.
“You can give us as much or as little information as you like when you sign up,” Clements said. “If you do provide an address, we can send you geo-targeted alerts.”
The CivicReady system is offered by CivicPlus, which also serves as the city’s website host. It will cost the city $8,000 to offer it the first year and $11,000 each subsequent year.
While Clements said the website has offered the “basic functionality” of an alert system since 2018, it didn’t offer the signup ease and notification delivery options of the new system and only ever built up a “few hundred” users.
Several city departments use social media regularly to disseminate information quickly, Clements said, but even that has its limitations.
“Not everybody is on social media,” he said. “But even if you are … you may not see an alert that would cause you a detour on your morning commute in enough time to act on it.”
Clements is trying to get the word out about the new system, and he hopes to build the user base to at least 2,000 by this time next year.
Mayor Lynn Spruill said she is pleased with the product.
“Our goals have always been to communicate regularly with pertinent information to make our residents’ lives better and more convenient,” Spruill said. “This is just another tool in making that happen more efficiently and effectively. I am very pleased that our IT department has been so forward looking.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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