Town app hoped to go live by October

Bonnyville residents will have a new way to stay in the loop on municipal matters. 

The new Town of Bonnyville app is set to come online on October 1. 

“It’s very much a communication piece between the town administration, council and the residents,” said Mayor Elisa Brosseau. 

“Let’s say garbage pickup, I want to know where my route is, I want to know what my day is, you’d be able to easily access that if you have a smartphone by downloading the app. 

“We’re going to have the library on there, the swimming pool, the C2, so that all that information is in one central area. Of course, we always have the website. But if you have a smartphone, nowadays, it’s just so convenient to be able to have an app to access all that information.”

The Town set aside $50,000 in the 2022 budget to create an app. At last Tuesday’s council meeting, council reviewed options for development. 

Council liked that option presented by the bciti+ mobile app company because it is already predesigned and would have no upfront costs, just a startup first month fee of $3000, with every following month coming at a $1500 touch. 

The app would be a one-stop shop with information about public works status’, news, notifications and alerts, a survey tool, calendar, service requests, and so on. 

Every citizen would get a citizen’s ID as essentially the initial login. 

“They’ve been doing a lot of research as to what’s out there,” said Brosseau about town staff. “Now that we’ve approved it last night, it should be up and live by October 1.”