Otisville Mayor Brian Carey said that improving communications with village residents has been a top priority since he took office in April 2023.
He personally manages the village’s Facebook page, whose followers have grown by hundreds.
He also got a camcorder, which he uses to record and upload the bimonthly village board meetings to Facebook for residents to watch in the comfort of their homes.
In the past, meetings were broadcast live on Facebook, but they were plagued with poor sound quality because of equipment limitations, he said.
With the tool, the village can inform residents of emergencies via text messages and nonemergency updates such as events and garbage schedules through emails.
“I found out that not everyone was on social media, and I also learned that—you learn a lot when you get into office—renters don’t normally get our newsletters,” Mr. Carey told The Epoch Times during a walk through the village on Feb. 10. “So this new tool will help us reach more village residents.
“If we take good advantage of this tool, we might be able to reduce the number of newsletters we mail out and save a lot of postage down the road,” he added.
So far, about 150 people have signed up for the new service, more than half being village residents, with the rest from other parts of the town of Mount Hope.
“I’m happy to share village updates with other town residents, but I’ll limit emergency communications to those who live within the village boundary,” he said, adding that the contact information collected for the service won’t be shared with any third-party vendors.
For residents who are confused about the municipal boundary—many Otisville addresses actually fall outside the village borders—he hopes a welcome package will help them out.
The village is working with the Asian American Advisory Committee on a welcome package for new residents; it can be made available in different languages as needed, he said.
While door knocking on Feb. 10, Mr. Carey, after handing out a flyer on “Constant Contact,” also reminded residents of a village-sponsored defensive driving course on March 23.
Participants get the benefit of reduced insurance premiums upon completion of the course.
“I’ve always wanted to make something like this available to the residents, and after I came into office, we packed two of them,” he said. “This is my third one in less than a year.”
As village mayor, Mr. Carey also worked with board members in making infrastructure improvements at Little League fields and Veteran Memorial Park, and a new set of guardrails has been added downtown.
He told The Epoch Times that the village had been seeking grant money to give the downtown area a major facelift, including potentially repaving the parking lot and redoing the sidewalks.
