E-mailed crime alerts on horizon

The latest news on crime in Westborough soon may be just an e-mail away.

Police Chief Alan Gordon will present the Board of Selectmen next month with several possible ways of electronically alerting residents about local crime. One proposal is to sign up with a Minnesota company now running a pilot e-mail program in Boston.

``I think it's great," Gordon said. ``To me this is another avenue that would benefit us and the townspeople of Westborough."

Gordon is brainstorming with Officer Charles Dapolite, the administrator of the Police Department's website, and the town's technology systems staff about the choices he'll be presenting to the board on Aug. 15.

The idea was raised last week by Selectman George Thompson, who said he would like to see the board establish a subcommittee to suggest ways that other departments could be more interactive online.

``My intent was to prod them to think differently," Thompson said.

He was spurred on, he said, by a suspicious incident last month that led to a flood of sometimes incorrect e-mails being circulated among parents and parent groups. Thompson's sixth-grade son came home with a note about the incident a day after the e-mails were sent, he said.

``It's just the night and day comparison of that," Thompson said. ``I received three e-mails within a half-hour and get a purple slip in my son's backpack a day later."

A Westborough mother had told police that a man with two children in a pick up truck tried to give her 10-year-old son candy on Byard Lane , Gordon said. Parents feared the incident may have been linked to attempted abductions in surrounding towns ; Gordon said it was not.

``It got blown way out of proportion," said George Barrette, the chairman of the Board of Selectmen. ``The key is to disseminate accurate information. Bad information just makes people panic."

It would cost the town $780 a year to use Citizen Observer , which is based in St. Paul, Minn. The fee would include a home page on the company's website -- www.citizenobserver.com -- and police access to the software needed to send e-mails to the computers, pagers, cell phones, and other computer devices of residents who sign up. E-mails can be sent to specific neighborhoods or an entire community. The service also allows residents to submit anonymous tips.

The Boston Police Department signed up to use the service in Dorchester, Roxbury and South Boston.

``We are definitely happy with it," said Joseph Porcelli , civilian community service officer in the Boston Police Department's neighborhood crime watch unit. ``It's wonderful to be able to instantly communicate with folks. It takes about a minute to type up and e-mail. It's really a fast proactive way to communicate."

The system is used to alert residents of crimes and events such as National Night Out, Porcelli said. It will also be used to alert citizens of things like water-main breaks.

Porcelli said the department hopes to expand the service to other neighborhoods.

So far, more than 300 communities in 30 states have signed up, with more than 20 each in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The service's larger clients include Fresno, Calif.; Fort Worth, Texas; and Cincinnati, the company stated.

Another possibility is updating the existing Police Department website, www.westboroughpolice.com , to allow e-mail notifications similar to what Citizen Observer provides, Gordon said. But it's not clear whether the town website could handle the e-mail traffic and how much the necessary software would cost.

An electronic notification system would replace a Reverse 911 system the department canceled two months ago after eight years of use because it became too expensive, Gordon said. The $6,000-a-year system used 10 telephone lines to send out recorded messages to residents, with the process of contacting every family in town often taking hours to complete.

The Police Department website already includes an updated daily log, news releases on crime alerts and on department programs, as well as a sex offender information page.

In addition, police officers go door to door when a Level 3 sex offender moves into a new neighborhood.