Alachua County launches 'My Alachua County' app; marks 25 years of Alachua County Forever

At the start of its Jan. 13 meeting, the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners received a presentation marking the 25th anniversary of the Alachua County Forever land-conservation program and an announcement of a new county mobile app.

Communications Director Mark Sexton said the county’s film crew captured celebrations for the Alachua Conservation Trust and noted the county’s longstanding land-conservation ballot measures. "Alachua County Forever is 25 years old," Sexton said, describing community events and the program’s goal to acquire and manage environmentally significant lands.

Sexton also introduced the new "My Alachua County" mobile app, which he said will deliver timely notifications about county news, meetings, road projects, weather alerts, adoptable animals, and employment opportunities directly to residents’ phones. "We're very excited to announce the launch of My Alachua County, our new app," Sexton told the commission, and he encouraged commissioners and members of the public to download it from the Apple App Store or Google Play and try the app’s notification settings and QR-code download offered in the meeting.

Chair Ken Cornell and other commissioners highlighted recent program successes during the presentation, noting that the county has closed more than 100 conservation properties recently and uses local conservation programs as models for other jurisdictions.

What happens next: The communications team will continue incremental feature rollouts for the app and will work with departments to add topic-specific notifications (for example, road updates or animal-resources alerts) as features become available.