MAYVILLE – After more than two years, village officials are canceling a texting program used to notify the community of an emergency or promote village activities.

During the recent Mayville Village Board meeting, officials agreed to end the SlickText program.

DPW Superintendent John Buxton had been managing the program, but asked it to be handled by someone else.

Buxton noted that if there’s an emergency, he generally needs to be at the scene, not back at his office, going on a website to craft the notification, which is part of the reason why he handed to hand it off. But he added that he would be willing to send out the notifications if someone else would make the decision on what to send out and when.

Buxton also said SlickText was designed to allow the village board to communicate by text of other things, such as festivals or parades, but no one in the village was sending out texts for those type of events.

According to village Treasurer Jennifer Obert, Mavyille has been paying $49 a month for up to 1,000 texts. If the village sent more than 1,000 texts a month, the cost would increase, however she said they never got close to that amount.

Mayor Rick Syper said NY Alert can notify residents if there is a large emergency.

Trustee Daniel Roush said since NY Alert is a free service he recommends that for emergencies and using Facebook for community events.

The village board started using SlickText in October, 2020. It will end its contract with the company by the end of the month.

Village officials encourage residents who use SlickText or anyone else who wants to be notified of emergencies to go to www.alert.ny.gov to sign up for alerts from the state-run program. The program gets it local information from the county Office of Emergency Services.