Royston Considering Offering City “App” for Smartphones, Tablets

Want to know what road projects are planned for your community? Or are interested in paying your utility bill from your phone?

Well if you live in Royston, there may soon be an app for that.

The City of Royston is exploring the possibility of offering a free app for citizens to download to their smart phones so they can quickly access City information.

At last week’s City Council meeting, councilmen and Mayor David Jordan heard from Councilman Keith Turman who is putting forth the idea.

Turman said other municipalities, such as Rome, GA offer a downloadable app and he believes it would be a benefit to citizens.

“This app will allow our citizens to get more involved with what’s going on in local government,” Turman said. “As you can see the room is pretty empty now as far as citizens participating in the meetings. This is a way for citizens to get involved.”

Turman said cited a number of convenient uses for the app such as reporting a road repair.

“They could log into the app, the app would identify the citizen and their location,” Turman said. “The app will let the user know their notice has been submitted. It will then let the user the app has been submitted, it’s been received, and it will update the user as to the progress and then let the user know the repair has been completed.”

Other uses, Turman pointed out, could be for paying utility bills online, reading minutes of meetings, etc.

However, mayor Jordan expressed some concerns that the app might require someone in-house to manage it as they do the City’s web site.

“The only danger in going with apps is that then you have some things on Facebook, etc. and where do you want your real communication to be? Do you want it to be on apps, on Facebook, do you want to have it through a web site. You have to pick,” Jordan said.

Turman said the app would allow the user to link all of the City’s social media so that everything would be accessible from the one app.

Turman said he had already gotten information from a software provider and after more discussion, Jordan told Turman to continue to look into it.