New system to alert, inform Fort Smith residents

Communication between the city of Fort Smith and its residents has gotten easier with the launch of a new system the city has dubbed iFortSmithConnect.

Through the new system, all homes or businesses with telephone numbers listed in the phone book will be notified of various situations, such as emergencies or other general purpose situations, such as fire hydrant testing or sanitation schedule changes, according to Tracy Winchell, communications manager with the city.

"The cool thing about this system is you can target specific wards," she said.

By being able to specifically target certain areas, such as a ward or a street, it reduces the amount of unnecessary messaging going out to residents of non-affected areas.

"With our our ward meetings, we were not getting very much response," she said. "We thought let's use this to invite people ward by ward to come to the ward meetings. And we did that and our numbers improved."

City Director André Good, who initially approached Winchell about the idea for a system like iFortSmithConnect about two years ago, said the system was a necessity for many Fort Smith residents.

"The reason I thought it would be a good idea at the time is I had people in my ward that weren't on the Internet who needed to be notified of what was going on," he said. "I thought it would be good to get this information to them. And everyone thought it was a good idea."

When preparing for a call out to homes and businesses, Winchell said a city employee, which may include a low level staffer all the way up to Mayor Sandy Sanders, will record a message for the residents who will receive the message.

Typically, those calls will go out at 6:30 on a Sunday evening in order to not be intrusive or disruptive.

But there are times, she said, when the system is used in emergency situations, such as during winter weather or if another emergency were to occur. Good said the system was also useful to citizens who might not have a home phone or possibly prefer other methods of communications.

"One of the (things) that I thought was really helpful is if a citizen gives a cell phone number as a second point of contact, we now get the messages on the cell via text (message)," he said.

He said the system also has the ability to leave a voicemail should the phone not be answered, which would ensure delivery of any potential message.

"A lot of people get busy and don't have a lot of time at home and rely more on cell phones," he said.

To sign up for alternate methods of communications, Winchell said a citizen could just go to the city’s website. There, they can sign up not only for cell phones, but also text and e-mail notification. (Residents may also link here to sign up.)

She said residents may also sign up for specific areas of communication that interest them, such as parks and recreation or transportation.

"You may have 100 people who want information on street closings, but if it's not in your area, you (may not) care," Winchell said. "We're able to target the 10 people or the 30 people on that street who are affected and for how many days, and that's really, really cool. We're not going to bug you unless you're impacted by a street closing or a utility line maintenance."

Even though the city has so much information available to communicate with residents and is encouraging citizens to sign up with additional contact methods, she said the system will not be used to track private information.

"If I have the capability to do that, I'm not smart enough to figure that out," she joked, adding that safe guards are in place by Blackboard-Connect, the vender who built the system, to keep information confidential, among other things.

"This contract specifies that we do not have permission to sign up on behalf of anyone else. We may not use this list to transfer over and encourage people to sign up for (any other newsletters or communications)."

As the system grows and becomes more advanced, Winchell said she hopes to eventually use iFortSmithConnect to communicate with the media as well.

The first heavy usage of the system, which has been beta-tested since February, will be in the next few months as meetings on the city's updated comprehensive plan take place.

"But we're going to be very careful. We can't send junk," she said, adding that only vital communications will take place through the new system.