Residents who prefer to text over call could soon have the option when reporting something to MD of Bonnyville peace officers.
Chris Garner, director of public safety, said they're looking into a program that would allow residents to not only text-in their complaints, but would also give peace officers the ability to send emergency alerts.
Currently, the municipality is in talks with Connect By All-Net, a program offered by All-Net Municipal Solutions that has an emergency alerting feature.
Garner said it's a way for the MD to "fan out information to people's phones through text alerts."
Residents register their phone numbers in order to receive text messages, emails, or voice calls when an emergency is taking place.
“People can’t text back, it just goes one-way and is more like an information program,” noted Garner.
This function is being used by the Town of Barrhead, who chose to only allow communication to residents, not the other way around.
The MD on the other hand, wants to give the public the ability to send a text to the public safety department with any non-emergency related concerns.
“What we’re looking at is a dedicated number for people to text us with information, because that was requested at a couple of the crime prevention forums, is people would like to be able to shoot us a quick text rather than call in and go through the process with dispatch,” he explained.
However, there are downsides.
“There might not be the right information contained in the text to enable us to take action on it as quickly as we would like, we might have to call the person or text them back to get further details, but also monitoring. This won’t be something that’s going to be monitored all of the time, so if it’s urgent, then that’s something we would hope people would call in about. We will have a staff member, maybe one of our clericals, that will keep an eye on it, but if that person is at the front counter or are doing another task, perhaps there will be a delay,” added Garner, noting if it's urgent, residents are encouraged to pick up their phones and call it in.
This service is more directed towards situations where people want to inform peace officers of non-emergent issues such as a vehicle parked on an approach.
"It's all for convenience," Garner stated. “I think the advantage of this is people can shoot us a text and we will get it and be able to assess it, and not necessarily have them sitting on the phone and answering all kinds of questions."
When it comes to sharing information with the public, Garner sees it as an opportunity for residents to be another set of eyes and ears for their peace officers.
“I think it’s always a benefit to be able to share as much information as possible with residents so they can help us. If they know what we’re trying to achieve and do, oftentimes, they can help us do it,” he added.
At this point, Garner isn't sure what the cost of the program will be, because they're still in discussions with All-Net Municipal Solutions.
Garner noted they're not even sure if the company will be able to run both programs, or it they will have to go with another source for their "text-in" capability.
Their hope is to have it up and running within the year, however, due to the late municipal budget, Garner isn't sure if that's going to happen.
“Usually I like to get everything done in the winter, but with the late budget, I wasn’t able to do much,” he said.
