Northville City, Township Police Departments Create Email Alert Systems

When the once-free Nixle email alert system announced plans to charge governments a fee, Northville city and township police departments vowed to create their own email alerts.

Now both are up and running.

The city police department has announced that residents can access its email alerts through the Northville City Police Department Community Alert and Response Email System (NCPD CARES).

According to a city police department press release, "NCPD CARES is an email alert system to keep the community informed of public safety alerts, advisory messages, community information, and traffic alerts."

You can subscribe to the email alerts on the city website.

The benefit of an email alert system, Northville city police chief Gary Goss previously said, is that it adds "More eyes and ears out there. If we have a missing subject or someone we’re looking for or if we simply want to put out a traffic update, the more eyes and ears we have it’s like a full force multiplier."

The department also created a Twitter account for community alerts that followers can get on their smart phones, according to the press release.

The township's e-alerts are also available by subscription. Visit the township website and check off public safety under the news section to receive the alerts.

"In today’s technology age, any time you can get info to those that are affected, the quicker the better," township public safety director John Werth said. The department is also looking into expanding its information service to Twitter and Facebook.

Both departments discontinued the Nixle service in May when Nixle alerted police departments across the country that it would no longer be free. It would cost police departments $1500 in the first year with possible increases after that.