Council Scheduled to Address Ways to Improve Disaster Communications

• Malibu in a Disaster — ‘There [Could Be] an App for That’

BY BILL KOENEKER

Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich has an idea and wants to float it past her colleagues at next week’s council session.

Conley Ulich wants to consider funding money from the city’s coffers to develop a smart phone application that could keep city officials connected with citizens in a constant stream of updates with critical emergency information and other news about the city at non-crisis times.

In a staff report prepared by City Manager Jim Thorsen, the fiscal impacts are discussed and his preliminary numbers suggest that from information he has seen, an application can cost anywhere from $995 plus $20 month for basic premade content to information based app templates costing from $10,000 to $50,000, or more, for a custom application.

A transcript of the emails between Thorsen and Conley Ulich was released where Thorsen asked Conley Ulich if she wants to put forward to the council something that has such a high price tag.

Thorsen talks about utilizing social media, such as Facebook. Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, or any number of other networks.

“It would be possible to send out non-emergency  messages via Twitter that a traffic accident has occurred, or a power outage is going to happen. If our goal is to provide an application where  people can provide information to the city for potholes, signal malfunction, then I have heard that Twitter and others are not that good,” Thorsen said.

A consultant that weighed in on the discussion indicated if Malibu wished to allocate the money for it, an app could be developed that would keep people in the city connected, and updated with critical information related to fires and floods and other natural disasters, emergency information, evacuation routes, road closures, accidents and Sig Alerts.

“You are basically creating a social network for your community to participate in. This is a one stop shop for anything you need to know. Plus, you would be able to monetize this through advertisements. It could be free to the consumers and they also could find products and services they are looking for,” wrote the consultant in an email.

Conley Ulich argued that the money being spent on a public relations firm might be better spent,” communicating directly with our constituents.

“I am very concerned that the public and our own city council is not notified immediately when accidents and majortity issues occur. We have to work on this,” she added.