Tyrone PD: Important information regarding Nixle.com and citizen notifications!

The Tyrone Police Department joined Nixle in April 2009 in order to ensure that we had the capability to provide our citizens with pertinent information and emergency notifications. We were the first agency in Georgia and the 16th in the United States to sign on with them and we were assured at the time that this was a free service and that it would remain that way.

Now that they have over 6,000 member agencies, Nixle has decided to begin charging all of its members for their services effective April 29, 2011. According to the email we received, our initial year would cost $1495 and each additional year would cost $3000. As you can imagine, these costs are simply not feasible for an agency of our size - especially in our current economy - so I have decided against budgeting for this expense.

This service has proven extremely positive with our citizens as we currently have a subscriber list of over 700 and we continue to receive very positive feedback from you for the information that we put out. Consequently, I have integrated a no-cost method into our new website that will allow us to continue to provide you with these updates.

Please visit www.tyronepd.org and you will find two sections in the right column of the homepage entitled 'Subscribe' and 'SMS Text Message'. Enter your email into the form under subscribe and your cell phone number/Mobile Carrier under SMS Text Message. All of our messages will be posted to our site and a notification will be sent to all subscriber emails and any emergency notifications will be sent to both your email and cell phone as a text message*.

As always, we will never share your information with 3rd parties and we will never send you messages that are not related to Town information, police/criminal activity, or actual emergencies in progress.

I apologize for any inconveniences that this may cause and I hope that all of our current subscribers will make the switch so that we can continue to provide you with important information about your community.

We will continue posting to Nixle and our website until the cut-off date of April 29, 2011. All notifications will be sent through www.tyronepd.org after that date.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns about this message or this new method.

Respectfully,
Chief Brandon Perkins