CONNECT-CTY - A Village-Wide Emergency Telephone Notification System

Getting the word out to the residents and businesses within the Village of Lincolnshire of a critical situation or an emergency in a timely and efficient manner is of utmost importance. There have been times in the past where due to a watermain break the Village has issued a "boil order" for drinking water until the pipes were fixed; a missing person was reported; for emergency road closures; or Des Plaines River flooding reports. The Village had relied on a telephone notification system which took hours and hours to call the residents, or Village employees had to go door-to-door making these notifications.

Given today's technology, quicker systems are now available. A few years ago the Village entered into a contract agreement with the NTI Group to utilize their CONNECT-CTY Community Notification System. This system is capable of placing thousands of telephone calls within a matter of minutes. The confidential database of telephone numbers is provided and maintained by the NTI Group and updated monthly. There are no equipment purchases required by the Village and the beauty of this system is the cost to the Village is a little over $2 per year per household.

Like any system, it is only as good as the information in the database. WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!

If you have an unlisted or unpublished telephone number, there is a very good chance you are not in the database. We need and want you IN! While you may opt not to be in the system, why would you? Please be assured your information will not be released to anyone, and the Village will not "cry wolf" and overuse the system. It will be used for emergencies and exigent circumstances only.

Here's how the CONNECT-CTY notification system works. In the event of a notification, the system will dial the PRIMARY telephone number for the residence and relay a recorded message advising of the emergency or exigent circumstance. If the telephone line is busy or there is no answer, the system will automatically make three (3) re-try attempts. If the line is still busy or there is still no answer after the third re-try, the system will disregard any further calls. If the telephone is answered by an answering machine, a recorded message will be left. The system is also capable of calling a SECONDARY telephone phone such as a cell phone or sending a message to an E-Mail address. Each residence can have any or all three of these contact numbers called and we encourage you to do this.

When the message is sent to an E-Mail address, it is sent as a .WAV audio file which can be played through your Windows Media Player. The Windows Media Player is included with the Windows operating system, or it can be downloaded from the Microsoft Website. While the secondary phone and E-mail are optional, we really need your primary house telephone number at a minimum. Please be assured that this information will be used by the Village of Lincolnshire for official business only and will be confidentially maintained and not disseminated.

Also, all of the businesses within the Village are already included in this database.

To assist those of you whose numbers are unlisted or who would like to add a secondary number or E-mail address, please click here to enter your information. We will then update the database with your personal information. If you do not have Internet access, we can enter the information for you. Contact Interim Chief of Police John Kleffner at 847.913.2342 and we will be glad to assist you.

We hope that everyone takes advantage of this community safety program. It is an excellent way to be directly in touch with the Village. This system will not take the place of the emergency warning siren system. As a reminder, if you hear a steady 3-minute siren, a tornado is in the area and you should take shelter immediately.

If you receive a notification message, please do not call the police department as our lines will be swamped and we won't be able to receive normal calls. You can always go to the Village’s website for further information or follow the instructions in the message on how to replay the message.

Should you require any further information or have any questions, please contact Interim Chief of Police John Kleffner at 847.913.2342.