New service includes emergency management alerts to any text-enabled device
In response to the Douglas County Board of County Commissioners' directive to improve public access to and receipt of timely information, Douglas County today announced a free automated e-mail subscription service accessible from both the Douglas County Government
www.douglas.co.us and Douglas County Sheriff's Office Web site
www.dcsheriff.net.
This Web-based solution allows subscribers to receive timely updates at both an e-mail address and on a text-enabled device. The distribution of emergency alerts on cell phones, pagers, and other text-enabled devices will be used for emergency communications or for other time-sensitive news to subscribers.
"This is both a cost-efficient and effective solution to improving communications with our communities and helps us disseminate information faster than we have ever had the means to do so before," said Steve Boand, chair of the Douglas County Board of Commissioners, who, along with fellow Commissioners Melanie Worley and Jack Hilbert called for the need to improve the public's access to Douglas County information.
"We want to do more than just post information on a Web page and hope people see it," said Commissioner Boand. "Now we can notify people when the information they want and need is available online."
Subscribers may choose from more than 70 different categories of information from all County departments, at no charge, as well as the emergency management alert selection.
Topics include employment opportunities; information on town meetings, public hearings, business meetings; Commissioners' schedules; messages from Elected Officials, grant opportunities, citizen volunteer opportunities, and various topical updates on land use, water and transportation issues.
This Web-based solution monitors the Douglas County and Sheriff's department Web sites for content updates, and notifies subscribers based on their personal preferences, containing the topic choices selected during registration, when updates are made to the Web sites.
Signing up for e-mail updates is free. Visitors to either the County or Sheriff's Web site can click on the envelope, "Receive County Email Updates," icon at the top left of the home page to subscribe. Subscribers can change the pages to which they want to subscribe or cancel the service at any time.