ZELIENOPLE — Borough council Monday evening addressed possible changes to its emergency notification system.

Swift 911, part of Swiftreach Networks, delivers messages and makes phone calls to people or areas in the event of an emergency or for sharing important information. Messages may include information on fires, road closures, evacuation orders and weather emergencies.

The system also can send text messages and e-mails to subscribers. The borough and neighboring Harmony combined have more than 3,300 people signed up.

Jackson Township and Evans City also use the system.

However, nonemergency notifications for Harmony events and activities also are sent to systerm subscribers.

“We use it primarily for events and major notifications,” said Allen Bayer, council president. “They (Harmony) use it for events, but also for activities throughout the borough that they publicize.”

Bayer said Harmony officials asked Zelienople officials if they wanted to use the system to publicize Harmony events.

“I said to them Zelienople has been very conservative in using Swiftreach,” Bayer said.

Don Pepe, Zelienople manager, said he is “hesitant to use it (Swift911) for other reasons.”

“I’ve always erred on the side of saying when a Swiftreach is sent out, it can’t become unnoticeable because it’s dealing with an emergency,” Pepe said.

Pepe said previously that the borough pays “less than $2,000” for the system.

Zelienople Police Chief Jim Miller said the system was “not designed” to notify subscribers of local events.

“We had people actually cancel their subscriptions because there were too many (notifications) in the past,” Miller said.

He said four to five notifications were sent per month when the borough first started using the system.“People lose their alertness,” he said.

Miller suggested sending e-mails to community members notifying them of non-emergency events in the borough.

Mary Hess, Zelienople council member, said one e-mail should be sent per month with an events list for both boroughs.