COVINGTON, Ga. — With the goal of keeping residents continually “engaged and informed” about current events and public safety matters, the city of Covington has launched a texting update service.

City Manager Scott Andrews announced Monday, Feb. 28, the city purchased a texting service, Textedly, that would allow for quick communication with residents.

“We want our community to be engaged and informed on important matters of safety and infrastructure and to provide another option for those that do not utilize social media,” Andrews said. “This is another fantastic opportunity for the city to show our level [of] transparency with the residents of our community. Citizens can opt into this, just as they have for our award winning bi-weekly reports, and our Community Champions emails. We believe it will be a tremendous tool of transparency for our citizens.”

Andrews said residents may opt in by texting one or both of the keywords “COVevents” and “COVsafe” to 844-912-0958. Each keyword represents what updates a resident will receive.

Keyword “COVevents” would provide updates on events going on in the community, including monthly updates about city-sponsored events, so residents can stay better involved, Andrews said.

Keyword “COVsafe” would send updates about topics of public safety or concern. These notifications would be more timely and be centered around things such as road closures, inclement weather warnings and utility outages.

“This will only be utilized to relay meaningful information to the community,” Andrews said. “We are not going to send messages every day and anyone who signs up can be assured their cell phone number will only be used for this texting service.”

Community Development Director Trey Sanders said there was no specific event or reason that led the city to launching the new program. It was simply an idea to help keep members of the community better informed.

“The city utilizes this service to remind employees of specific events and important reminders, and the natural progression was to offer it to the public,” Sanders said. “We do hear from a number of residents that they would appreciate a text service. Especially those that don’t stay glued to social media.”

The city had previously purchased the text notification program for internal use, but to implement the community aspect, it cost the city an additional nearly $1,920. 

While the system is active and residents are encouraged to enroll in the text program, Sanders said it would be a few weeks until messages start getting sent out.