Kingston city officials consider text alert system – Daily Freeman

Kingston City Hall is located at 906 Sawkill Road. (Photo by Tony Adamis)

CITY OF KINGSTON, N.Y. — Officials are considering sending city information via text messaging and alerts as an option to the slower system provided through mailed newsletters or the social media platform Facebook.

Councilor Vincent Nelson suggested using the TextMyGov app during a city council meeting on Tuesday, May 7.

“I want to do a Facebook survey to see if people in town would be interested,” he said.

Information from the TextMyGov website shows that there is a free basic tier for an app that uses basic functions including issuing alerts, receiving messages from residents and sending website links . A select media version costing between $300 and $800 per year depending on population size adds QR codes and gives customers a choice of three options to post four social media posts, receive a personalized video, or customize graphics . There is also a version costing between $800 and $1,500 per year that has all of these features with additional amounts for each.

“(For) Sawkill Road, during construction, we could text residents … to get the information out quicker,” Nelson said.

A mudslide along about 30 feet of Sawkill Road, at the municipal line with the town of Ulster, led to a detour of about a day in late December 2023. It’s the type of announcement Nelson said he would like to publish immediately.

“I would really like to no longer have to pay the cost of mailing the city newsletter,” he said. “So we could email and text. I would much rather do that than spend on postage and possibly publish the city newsletter several more times a year.

The municipal bulletin is published four times a year and contains basic information on municipal schedules.

“Not many people read it and there’s a lot of information about what’s happening in the city in the next quarter,” Nelson said. “Usually there’s three months of information … about our recycling schedule, spring cleanings and everything that’s going on in the fire service. »

Nelson also said he found that using Facebook came with the need to carefully monitor posts. “Facebook is a nightmare,” he said. “You’re getting misinformation and misinformation. …So I want to be able to instantly communicate the appropriate information to the residents of our city.

The city has an official page that has been used for notices and announcements, but it is difficult to navigate and users may scroll through images without finding the information they are looking for.

“God forbid there’s a real emergency,” Nelson said. “If there is an earthquake or hurricane, we can provide an immediate response to the public. We can also enable it so that there is two-way communications… so if we need a response, we can enable it at any time.