Austin County is looking to upgrade the county’s emergency mass communication system.  The current emergency notification provider for Austin County is Blackboard Connect whose world headquarters is based out of Washington, DC.  The county decided to put out the notice for open bids and received seven bids from willing companies who’d like to be the new service provider.  (Of note, the current provider, Blackboard Connect did not submit a bid)    Commissioners Court opened these bid proposals at the June 8th commissioner’s court meeting.  (If you are interested in watching the bids being opened and discussed, follow the link and it is item 9 on the agenda)   

Of the seven bidders, Ray Chislett Austin County’s Emergency Management Director, was tasked with heading a committee to narrow the number down to a more manageable three or four providers to then have them give presentations to the commissioners court for evaluation.  During the June 8th meeting Commissioner Reese Turner inquired if there was something needed that the county doesn’t presently have provided by Blackboard Connect.  Chislett responded, “I have not been satisfied with Blackboard Connect.  We’ve had a lot of problems over the years and they’ve done quite a bit to upgrade but, they were started as a school notification [system] not as an emergency notification system.  And, there are a lot of items that these new companies have that Blackboard Connect has never put into their system.”  Chislett approximated that the county currently spends around $19,000 annually for its emergency notification provider, which was toward the upper end of all seven of the bid proposals.

On Monday’s commissioners court meeting the final three providers in the running gave their presentations to the court.  The companies that were finalists for the position of emergency mass communication system provider for Austin County were:  Code Red, Hyper-Reach, and Civic Ready.  After the three gave their presentations the court briefly discussed the three companies but, decided to wait on making a final decision until the next commissioner’s court meeting.  The commissioners wanted to have time to go to the providers websites and do their own research before making a decision.  Chislett was tasked with communicating with other counties that had or were currently utilizing each of the companies’ services for feedback on how they felt about the service they were receiving.

We videoed all three of the presentations that the commissioners saw.  You can watch them in the video below.  If you have the chance to watch the video you might want to contact your county precinct’s commissioner and give him your feedback on who you feel would be a good provider for the county.  (You can contact the commissioners by their county emails HERE)

The times for the presentations are as follows:

Code Red – (00:01:16 – 00:52:02 of the video)

Hyper-Reach – (00:52:02 – 01:35:14 of the video)

Civic Ready – (01:25:14 – 02:17:40 of the video)
The commissioners brief discussion follows.