Sunday, October 17, 2010

Sheriff mis-uses Nixle

On March 4 the McHenry County Sheriff's Department announced a program with Nixle to send certain messages electronically to County residents.

In its press release, MCSD said, "With Nixle; the Sheriff’s Office can provide you with up-to-date information on emergency alerts, important advisories, community updates, and traffic information, impacting the areas near you by cell phone, e-mail, and on the web."

On October 14 MCSD announced through Nixle a new jail training program for inmates, in which Aramark will train about a dozen low-risk inmates in Kitchen Services.

Now, let's see; in which category (above) does such an announcement fall?

emergency alerts? No
important advisories? No
community updates? No
traffic information? No

That announcement was a purely politically-based announcement. Nygren was trying to boost his ratings with the voters, and he used a County-maintained tool to do so.

Too bad we don't have an Inspector General here in McHenry County Government or an Interal Affairs Division at the Sheriff's Department.

1 comment:

But Seriously said...

Gus,
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say announcing a new County run Jail program is not a community update.

Thank you though for keeping your criticism on this one honest. Your opponent, Mahon, has simply not been honest in his attack on this one. He clearly has been trying to get voters to believe Nixle is only for emergencies. Anyone who checks it out for themselves can easily see that attack in less than honest. Nixle is a commercial text/email program.

Nixle streams include everything from local pizza specials to the city of Lemont announcing their Octoberfest celebration plans. To imply the program is not used this way is simply not factual.