Kingston city officials consider text alert system – Daily Freeman

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

CITY OF KINGSTON, N.Y. — Officials are considering whether city information should be delivered via text messages and notifications as an alternative to the slower system provided through mailed newsletters or the Facebook social media platform.

Councilman Vincent Nelson made the suggestion to use the TextMyGov app during a city council meeting on Tuesday, May 7.

“I want to do a poll on Facebook to see if city residents would be interested,” he said.

Information on the TextMyGov website shows there is a free, basic tier of an app that uses basic functionality, including issuing alerts, receiving messages from residents and sending links to a website. A select media version, which costs between $300 and $800 per year depending on population size, adds QR codes and offers customers a choice of three options: either write four social media posts, receive a custom video, or graphics to be customized. There is also a version that costs between $800 and $1,500 per year and offers all of these features, each with an additional cost.

“When Sawkill Road was built, we were able to text it to residents … to get the information out quicker,” Nelson said.

A mudslide across approximately 30 feet of Sawkill Road on the township line with the City of Ulster in late December 2023 resulted in approximately a day’s diversion. It’s the kind of announcement Nelson said he would make immediately.

“I would really like to save myself the postage for sending the city newsletter,” he said. “So we were able to send emails and text messages. I would much rather do that than spend the postage and potentially put out the city newsletter a few more times a year.”

The city newsletter is published four times a year and contains basic information about the community plans.

“There aren’t a lot of people reading and there’s a lot of information out there about what typically happens in the city over the next quarter,” Nelson said. “Typically there’s three months of information … about our recycling plan, spring cleanups and everything that’s going on with the fire departments.”

Nelson also said he has found that using Facebook comes with the need for careful monitoring of posts. “Facebook is a nightmare,” he said. “You get misinformation and the wrong information. … That’s why I want to be able to get the right information to our city residents right away.”

The city has an official site that is used for notices and announcements. However, navigation is difficult and users can scroll through images without finding the information they are looking for.

“God forbid it becomes a real emergency,” Nelson said. “If there is an earthquake or a hurricane, we can alert the public immediately. We can also turn it on so that two-way communication is possible. So if we need an answer, we can turn that on at any time.”