Early Warning System Offers Automatic Notification of City and State Announcements

By Eric Weld, MassLandlords, Inc.

MassLandlords members can now automatically track pending legislation, regulation and policy changes, open hearing announcements and other important issues by signing up for a new notification system implemented this month.

Although some matters draw great public interest, many matters of key concern to owners are enacted with little public participation at all. Boston City Council Chamber CC0.

Once you opt in, this notification tool—which we refer to as an “early warning system”—will automatically send an email directly to your inbox every time a post or change is added to select city and state government websites monitored by MassLandlords.

As early warning system participants, you have the option to choose which websites to receive notifications from. Monitored city websites include Boston, Framingham, Holyoke, Lawrence, Somerville, Springfield, Waltham and Worcester. Participants may also opt to receive notices about state agencies and statewide bills.

“Too often public hearing notices are perfunctory, carried out for compliance with no effort at engaging stakeholders,” notes Doug Quattrochi, executive director of MassLandlords, Inc., who helped develop and implement the early warning system. “We want motivated owners to know about hearings so we can attend and share our perspective.”

The early warning system is available for no charge to all current MassLandlords members. Sign up for early warning system automatic notifications by checking your preferences from the list of monitored websites, then click “submit.” Be sure to read the brief Early Warning System notice to learn how to participate in the program most effectively.

Email notifications to early warning system participants are generated from automatic monitors employed by MassLandlords on the targeted city and state websites. The monitors track new posts and changes to the websites. MassLandlords will add monitors as websites are added and changed, and will rely on system users’ feedback to maximize the efficiency of these monitors.

A Wide Range of News and Notices

As a participant in the MassLandlords early warning system, you will receive an assortment of municipal and/or state news and notices as soon as they are published, including announcements of school committee hearings, health and human services meetings, public health updates, pending changes in legislation pertaining to housing and transportation, and more. The range, types and geography of news you receive is determined by which monitored websites you subscribe to on the early warning system page.

MassLandlords will use information from program participants to help broadcast meeting announcements to members, and to filter out announcements from monitored websites that are not essential to landlords and other members (e.g. invitations to complete feedback surveys).

We also encourage you to coordinate attendance at public hearings among your constituencies by publishing notices of hearings on social media, for example, and on MassLandlords message boards based on early warning system notifications. You are also invited to use the information received through the early warning system generally, to participate and keep apprised of issues beyond the purview of MassLandlords.

The MassLandlords early warning system became open to members on Tuesday, October 8, 2019.