FAIRHOPE – Fairhope residents now have an app that allows them to check city notifications, pay utility bills and get other municipal information.
Mayor Sherry Sullivan told City Council members on Wednesday, Dec. 23, that the app is ready for release.
“We have that app that we’ve been working on. That is live and active,” Sullivan said.
She said earlier that that money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, paid for the development of the app.
“We’re really excited about that,” Sullivan said. “I think it’s going to be a great communications tool for the city, and we hope to release it the first week of January. It will already be implemented the last week of December, but we’ll release that the first week of January.”
Jessica Walker, Fairhope community development director, said the December release will meet the deadline for funding under the CARES Act. The act requires that programs be in place by the end of 2020 to qualify for funding, according to federal guidelines.
“We’re in good shape,” Walker said. “We can encourage people to download a new way to communicate for the new year. We’re pretty excited about that.”
Walker said the app should allow residents to communicate more directly with city officials with less chances of emails being lost in inboxes.
“We know people want to get that help whenever they hit that button, so this will help us get that. We’re looking forward to getting that off the ground,” she said. “The bigger things that would have been very helpful for us during the hurricane was having the Facebook digest and the social media digest.”
The app allows users to have direct access to city social media and public safety sites.
The service can be downloaded from most app stores.
Once the app is installed, users can pay utility bills from their phone and have links to send messages to the city. The app also includes links to city departments and the Fairhope website.
The program also includes information about the city, answers to frequently asked questions and a message from Sullivan.
