EASTHAMPTON — Residents can now download the city of Easthampton’s new cellphone app, which offers features such as reporting a pothole by taking a photo, emergency notifications, closure alerts and more.
While the app, MyEasthampton, is now available on Apple and Android cellphones, Mayor Salem Derby said the official launch will be next week. As the app gets up to speed, Derby said more features will be added over the coming weeks and even months, but he is encouraging residents to download it now, touting the app’s capabilities.
“One of people’s main complaints about city government is that it doesn’t feel responsive or transparent,” Derby said. “We want to make sure we’re changing that so people get information when they feel they need it.”
Derby said the app offers a variety of tools that allow for paying bills, contacting Easthampton departments like Police and Fire, reporting issues, accessing agendas for committee meetings, and viewing social media, among other features. One feature that excites Derby is the ability for residents to report different issues around the city using a photo.
Along with the app, the city also just launched its new notification system earlier this week calling it a Mass Notification solution, through the software company CivicPlus. While separate from the app for now, Derby said the system and the app will eventually be integrated.
“This is a way for us to be able to get information out to residents in a really efficient and timely manner,” Derby said about the system. “(Imagine) if Mountain Road is going to close, there’s a water main break, something like the microburst.”
Derby said CivicPlus will bring a cleaner and more efficient system to Easthampton, replacing the city’s current notification system, Notify Me, and the former system CodeRED. The new Mass Notification system will cost the city approximately $10,000 a year, about $1,700 more than CodeRED.
New users can now enroll in the new system and residents currently enrolled in Notify Me will be automatically transferred.
Through the system, residents can choose from several categories to receive alerts, such as emergency and city alerts including public health advisories, severe weather, tax bill deadlines and more. Other categories include city news, closing alerts — such as roads and schools — news from the Council on Aging and parking bans.
“We can really use it for anything but really it’s going to be used for alerts, especially if there is a pressing issue,” Derby said. “When you opt in, there’s going to be an opportunity to choose what notifications you get.”
Derby said an incident last November with CodeRED led officials to start exploring a new alert system. CodeRED was reportedly cyberattacked, disrupting the emergency notification system used by municipalities across the country, according to the tech publication Bleeping Computer.
“We used to be on CodeRED and really CodeRED ended up having some pretty serious issues,” Derby said. “It went down and it was kind of a nightmare.”
Derby said the push for the new app started when he became interim mayor last July and he is pleased to see it coming to fruition, crediting the IT Department for getting it up and running.
“Anytime there is an emergency or information that needs to get out to the public, we want to make sure we’re doing it in a way that reaches the most amount of people in a short time,” Derby said.
To sign up for the new notification system, visit https://easthampton-ma.myfreealerts.com. MyEasthampton can be found on app stores on people’s cellphones.
