Full Notification

Dear Residents of Upper Macungie, Maxatawny, Topton, and Lyons,

Recently, some of you in the Upper Macungie area received a Nixle alert from our neighboring township of South Whitehall regarding the future use of Nixle services. If you haven’t received this email, Nixle has decided to start charging government agencies to continue using their product. As a result of this decision, Chief Weiser and I discussed the future of our crime watches and how we communicate with you. Chief Weiser then discussed this matter with the Berks-Lehigh Regional Police Commission and it has been decided to renew our contract with Nixle. For those of you who are not crime watch members, before Nixle, BLRPD used email to communicate crime information directly to crime watch captains and advisors, who then would use mass emails to communicate to the residents in that particular crime watch area. This worked temporarily, however it caused problems because of delays that would occur if the captain or advisor who was assigned the task of sending out the information was not available to deliver messages. Furthermore, if a resident did not live in a crime watch zone, they were not able to get the police information. Nixle has allowed BLRPD to send police information DIRECTLY to ALL residents immediately, not only through email, but through text message in emergencies. Nixle also has added some new features that we believe will make communicating with us even easier, such as text dial, that will allow residents the ability to text a key word (such as “homicide”) and immediately receive information about a particular case, event, or weather emergency. Furthermore, we are also looking at other Nixle add-ons as a possibility, like Nixle Dial, which would allow us to use a “reverse 911” type system that would automatically dial residents (who subscribe to the system and request the service) phone numbers and play an automatically recorded message. This is an exciting option, because it would allow us to reach residents who do not use email with important crime information.


We are very excited to continue bringing you Nixle. Please remember, Nixle is ONLY effective if residents receive our messages. Please, encourage your friends, neighbors, and family members to sign up and participate. We appreciate your help and support, and I strongly encourage you to contact me with any questions/feedback regarding Nixle.

[email protected]


Thank you and stay safe.


Respectfully,
Investigator Peter Nickischer
BLPRD