Jackson County Commissioners gave a green light to adopting the CodeRED service to better inform the public of emergencies during Tuesday’s Commissioners Court meeting.
Emergency Management Coordinator Lane Larson told commissioners that the OnSolve CodeRED Core for Emergency Service Communications would allow officials to reach a much broader audience than the current Jackson County, Texas app from Riverside Marketing.
“Basically, what we’re doing already with the Jackson County app, this is going to replace that and allow us to streamline our notifications and reach a wider audience,” Larson said.
Residents will be able to sign up and receive auto-generated alerts through phone, email, and social media for a variety of uses, according to the OnSolve website, including missing children or persons, evacuation notices, police activity and updates, severe weather warnings, street closures, planned power/water outages, lockdown advisories, and viral outbreaks.
According to the OnSolve website, some 10,000 counties, cities, towns and villages use CodeRED, as do more than 250 utilities and over 50 federal agencies.
Jackson County Sheriff Rick Boone confirmed to Judge Jill Sklar and commissioners that Victoria County uses the service.
“I’ve talked to Victoria, and they like it,” Boone said.
Sklar said she was aware of public criticism that the Riverside app was not easy to use and said that she thought CodeRED seemed to be a good way to efficiently inform the public.
“I haven’t seen a lot of push-outs with the Riverside Marketing app,” Sklar said. “I don’t think it’s as user friendly and I’ve seen some comments on social media that people find it a little more difficult to utilize. We have to have something if we’re not going to utilize the Riverside Marketing that we have now, then I think this is probably one of the better products that has been tested by our neighbors.”
It would have been handy to have during recent road closures due to major accidents, Boone said.
“The way our luck’s been going we really needed it like a week ago,” Boone said. “We’ve had some big events.”
Precinct 1 Commissioner Doug Frenzel expressed interest in being able to send targeted alerts to residents ahead of road work.
Boone said that he liked the service’s ability to reach anyone in a selected area, much like an Amber Alert, regardless of whether they subscribed to the service.
“What I like about it is it encompasses all of them, so it’s one notification that pushes out to all and it captures the ones that are passing through, like our (Highway) 59 closure the other day,” Boone said. “What we have doesn’t get out to those folks and those are the folks we need to reach and say, ‘hey, there’s been a detour.’” In addition, commissioners agreed to waive the fee at the county transfer station for the Friends of Elder Citizens Center to dispose of old metal desks, decorations, and other items that had been donated and were no longer needed.
In other business, the council: Approved the minutes of the Feb. 25 meeting; Approved budget amendments, line-item transfers and revenue certifications for Fiscal Year 2025 budget; Approved the annual report from the District Clerk’s Office; Approved the deputization of Claudia Olivares with the District Clerk’s Office; Approved a guaranteed maximum price amendment with BLS Construction, Inc., for the Jackson County Services Building renovation; Approved the entry-level driver training (ELDT) tuition program; Approved a Voyager card for jail transport; Approved a service agreement with Voice Products Service, LLC, for the Nice recorder in dispatch to run from April 21, 2025 to April 20, 2026 for $2,269.30; Approved a modification to the 40-yard recycling receiver box by Wastequip for $1,287.98; Received the district judges’ revised order setting salaries of the Auditor’s Office for the remainder of FY 2025; Approved the purchase of a handheld X-ray imager, estimated cost of $40,000, and a portable video scope kit, estimated cost of $11,500, with Operation Lone Star grant funds; Approved payment of county and precinct bills and court orders; Approved payroll changes; and Received various county reports, news, and information.
