Communications Service Available
The Glasscock County Commissioners Court on July 14 voted to subscribe to Connect-CTY, an integrated communications service that will allow local officials to reach the entire community or selected parts of it in minutes via telephone, text message or email. The county will pay a $250 initial set-up fee that includes on-site training and refresher training sessions. After set-up, the service will cost the county $1,883 the first year, then $1,633 in subsequent years. There is no cost to individual recipients or “stakeholders.”
The service can be used by any authorized county entity to send messages to stakeholders regarding an unlimited variety of matters such as storm warnings, volunteer call-ups, fire advisories or health warnings. The messages can be delivered to up to three phones and two email addresses per contact. Messages can go to home phones, work phones, cell phones, to email addresses, voice mail or PDA’s/Pagers.
Individuals Have to Furnish Contact Information
Each stakeholder will be contacted regarding whether he/she wants to participate in the service, and if so, that person will have to furnish the numbers at which he/she wants to be contacted. One may also choose not to participate, and thereby will not be contacted at all. The service will be managed locally by the sheriff’s office, with Deputy Sheriff Keith Burnett saying he is 100 percent behind it.
The service is seen primarily as an emergency system, though it is not limited to emergency use, and could be used anytime a message needs to go to a group of people, or to all participants in the county.
In the case of a weather alert, for example, people in a particular part of the county can be notified; in a call-up of volunteers, a specific pre-determined group would be contacted. Burnett said this would eliminate the need for pagers ($700 each) carried by emergency volunteers.