The Marion County storm warning committee will recommend to the full county board at its December 13th meeting they enter into a three year contract agreement for a phone and e-mail alerting system that would be available for all county residents.
The committee unanimously approved the recommendation after receiving a presentation from Nixle-Everbridge on the capability of the system to reach those on both landline and cell phones as well as e-mail.
Chair Steve Whritenour says if the county board moves quickly they can enter into the contract before the end of the year for $11,740 annually before a price increase takes effect.
“Us as a county, we sign up with the Everbridge system on a 3-year agreement. With that said, the individual cities and villages within the county will have the ability to customize it for their individual community. So if there is a water break in Kinmundy and they wanted to notify their community they could do that. Or if there is a fair or something going on each community can customize it how they want.”
The Nixle-Everbridge system was selected over a similar service because Salem, Centralia, and Sandoval are already utilizing some version of the Nixle program and those signed up would not have to sign up again.
Whritenour is recommending the county board pickup the entire cost of the program for the first three years and fund it through the quarter cent sales tax that is paid for throughout the county. Centralia and Wamac that are only partially in Marion County could enter into agreements to pay for the service for residents in their community in other counties.
The board also reviewed two proposals for maintenance and repair of the existing weather warning sirens for communities that want to keep them for weather warnings as well. No decision was made on which proposal to utilize.
