BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

MASSENA -- The village board voted down a resolution to allow the police chief to spend $2,000 per year on an app called Tip411 that could send emergency notifications to residents who use it, and it would have allowed people to submit crime tips.

The four-person board at the Tuesday meeting voted two yes and two no. Mayor Tim Currier and Deputy Mayor Matt Lebire were in favor. Trustees Albert Deshaies and Francis Carvel were opposed. Trustee Christine Winston was excused from the meeting. Lebire made the motion, and when it received no second, Currier seconded "for the purposes of a vote." Currier generally does not vote, unless there is a tie, nor does he usually move resolutions.

Prior to the vote, Carvel said he was concerned about the $2,000 yearly cost ballooning over time.

"How much is it gonna be five years from now?" he said.

Lebire said their contract called for $2,000 per year for two years and didn't get into subsequent years. He said he believes the level of competition among smartphone app makers would likely keep the cost low.

Before the board voted down the motion, Love said the app would connect the police department with anyone who downloaded the app and subscribed to their account, all of which is free for citizens.

He said people would have been able to email crime tips, and they would have been able to send alerts for law enforcement purposes or other emergencies.

"Could be the fire department or DPW. If DPW is doing work on Main Street and has a roadblock, I can put that out there," Love said. "It could be snow alerts, all that."

The chief said there is also a crime map where police can punch in data and people can look and see if the police are saying there's criminal activity near them. He said he tried the service out by going on the Syracuse Police Department's Tips411 channel and found the app easy to use.

Lebire said he researched the app and supported it for two reasons. The first is a growing number of people who want more available from a smartphone or tablet.

"There's a certain part of our community that wants to do it all through the phone," he said.

There's also the problem of Facebook's newsfeed algorithm that determines which followers of a page will actually see its content.

"(Chief Love) could put something online to Facebook and it might not even go to a third of the people's newsfeeds," Lebire said.