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Newport plans city app for targeted alerts and an AI‑indexed archive to digitize local history
Summary
City staff proposed a branded companion app (opt‑in notifications) to improve emergency and service communications and described a history‑project to scan archives, oral histories and newspapers into SharePoint and an AI index for public access and educational use.
City staff outlined two complementary communication and cultural projects at the Feb. 7 strategic session: a companion mobile app to expand resident notifications and a long‑range history‑digitization initiative.
City app and website: Staff described a CivicPlus companion app for the city website that would offer opt‑in push and text notifications, topic preferences (emergency alerts, events, parks), embedded calendar/YouTube meeting access, and targeted messaging to subscribers. Staff cautioned that full geofence push capability (sending alerts to all devices in a geographic polygon) is available but costly and can overshoot municipal boundaries; the planned approach emphasizes opt‑in subscriptions and better landing‑page signups to grow the audience.
History of Newport project: Historic‑preservation staff described scanning donated materials, newspapers and oral histories into a centralized SharePoint repository and feeding those documents into a constrained AI model to create an indexed, searchable archive and interactive learning tools. Staff said NKU has offered volunteer and graduate assistance and that a public portal, QR‑code wayfinding and classroom interactions are possible once source material and permissions are organized.
Why it matters: The app aims to reduce misinformation and provide direct city communication; the history project is intended to preserve local records and make them accessible for residents, researchers and schools.
Next steps: Staff will add clearer sign‑up prompts on the website, pilot the companion app signups and continue scanning archives into SharePoint with plans to make selected materials public over time.
