Stay tuned for Street Beat, Classic Hits public affairs and information program. Views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Classic Hits radio’s management or staff. And good morning, it’s Lupe, Classic Hits 92 95.3 . joining us on the Street Beat studio news line, Crystal Galena, finance director for the city of Calais, and we’re talking about the new notification service the city has installed to help keep Calais connected to what’s happening in the city.
Give us a brief overview of the new notification service that CALAIS has launched. The service is a way for citizens to stay informed with city public service announcements, updates about news and notices going on within the city, and postings about meetings and with minutes and agendas. What are the different methods through which citizens can receive notifications?
There are two ways to receive notifications, they can choose to get text messages, or email, or they can actually choose to receive through both. Uh, what inspired the city to introduce this notification service? Well, it’s a digital world, um, these days, and most people carry their phones around. And, it’s becoming more and more common for communities to, uh, communicate with their citizens this way.
And, it was offered as part of our Our new website, uh, that was, went live about a year ago. And we had finally worked out the kinks in the subscription service and are ready to get our citizens on board. Alright. And what specific benefits does the service provide, especially during emergencies? It provides instant notification.
It allows people to instantly know that there is something going on, particularly in the event of emergency. For example, back when, um, on January 1st, New Year’s Day, when we had that large water main break, it was, it would have been a good way to let citizens know about the water conservation needed quickly, and it would have gone to everybody who was subscribed.
It is really, honestly, just a great way to, um, Keep people informed and up to date. It keeps them connected. How does the sign up process work? To sign up, people can go to the Calais website. It is located at CALAISmaine. org, with Maine all spelled out. And they can navigate over to, um, The selection for community, and there’s a little down arrow next to it.
If they hover over that, it will bring up another menu, and on the left hand side of that menu is a button for subscribe. If they navigate there, they can then fill out their details. Um, an email address is required. A cell phone number is not required, but it is good to have one, especially in event of emergency.
Um, if an emergency does go out, it will notify everybody on both email and cell phone if those numbers are available. And we are with Crystal Galena, Finance Director for the City of Calais, and she’s joining us on the 3 Street Beat Studio Newsline. And we’re talking about the new notification system for the City of Calais.
Can you go a little more into detail of what kind of information can citizens expect to receive through these notifications? Sure. There are three types of notifications. There is agendas and minutes. So if there is a meeting, they can choose to subscribe to city council meetings and they’ll get notified whenever there’s a new agenda or council meeting minutes posted.
They can subscribe for the school committee, the planning board, or the school district trustees. The second set of notices is called news and notices. And that is anything such as public service announcements, building closures, events that might be going on. Citizen reminders, stuff like that. And then the third one is emergencies.
Um, you don’t actually subscribe for emergencies. You have to choose either the agenda and minutes or the news and notices. And then you will automatically be subscribed for emergencies. That makes sense. How does the service ensure the accuracy and timeliness of the notifications? The website is maintained by a couple of us here in the city building.
Um, we type up the notice and we tell it to post, we can, if it’s not something that’s an emergency, or even if it is an emergency, but something that we know is upcoming, such as there’s going to be a road closure, we can type that. We can do that. Then choose to either have that go out immediately or we can schedule it to go out closer to the date.
And it’s a push notification that then goes to the selected method. So if somebody has selected to receive text messages, that will go out to a text message in their phone. They’ll receive a notification by text that they can then click the link on their phone to go and read what the notice was. Hmm.
Are there any future plans to expand or enhance the notification service? Right now, we’re limited to what our website provider has, but as they do. increase their service and make changes, we will do the same and we intend to keep up with this. We want people to stay informed and think that this is a great way to do so.
How can citizens learn more about the service and its benefits? They can contact the Calais City Building. Um, they may contact me, um, the assessor or the city clerk if they want to know more or they can, um, just visit our city website and see what is available out there for the subscription. The other way is that they can email info at
calaismaine.org with questions and if they are having trouble subscribing, they can also use that email address with their information and one of us can help get them subscribed. All right. I would like to add that this is not going to be the only notification system going forward. We do intend to still use our Facebook page, um, at Calais Maine .
So, we would like everybody to, uh, follow that page as well. But that relies on, uh, People to share it, and for it to get shared in places where people will see it, whereas this is much, the subscription service is much more direct to the resident. Crystal Gallino, Finance Director for the City of Calais , for joining us.
Okay, thanks. And this is Lupe, you’re listening to Classic Hits 92. Thanks for listening. This has been Street Beat, Classic Hits public affairs and information program. Views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Classic Hits Radio’s management or staff.