By Karen L. Nugent, Telegram & Gazette

Leominster, Ma. — In early December, alarmed residents of Debbie Drive wondered why state troopers with guns drawn were walking around the normally quiet neighborhood, while up above their homes, noisy helicopters were circling.

It turns out an alleged criminal was on the loose, but it took hours to get that information out.

“And that was the second or third time something like that happened,” said City Councilor Claire M. Freda, who was at a Rotary Club meeting at the downtown Monument Grill the day of the December incident, when she began getting calls on her cell phone from frightened residents.

Which is why Mrs. Freda has proposed a new emergency notification system, Florida-based CodeRED, that would notify the entire city of emergencies within two minutes via telephone, cell phone, e-mail, text message, Facebook or Twitter.

The system, she told the City Council Monday night, is used in several large cities around the state, including Revere, Salem, Gloucester, and Newton. The city would have to come up with a one-time fee of from $16,000 to $28,000, depending on the level of information sent and services, she said, but there would be no annual fee.

“A lot of people would like to see something done,” Mrs. Freda told fellow councilors.

However, Charles Coggins, director of the Leominster Office of Emergency Management, who was at the meeting, said he prefers a system called Everbridge, based in California and used by Boston, Worcester, Canton and Watertown, that cost about $6,000 to set up, and about $15,000 a year to maintain. It could notify all residents within 10 to 15 minutes, he said.

Mr. Coggins, who acknowledged that the current notification system, Reverse 911, which is paid for by Central Massachusetts Homeland Security, is too slow, said he prefers a leased service that would be maintained by the server.

The current system, which is run through the Worcester County Sheriff’s Department, takes about four to five hours to notify all of Leominster and can only be used by public safety departments. Notifications about cold weather or city board meetings, for example, cannot be sent, and notifications can only go to home telephones, not cell phones or computers.

“It’s just not a very good system,” he said.

The School Department has its own notification system, and Mr. Coggins said the city cannot legally tap into that.

Mr. Coggins said CodeRED is preferred by small towns. Also, he pointed out that it tends to bombard residents with so many messages that they sometimes request to be removed from the list.

Council President John M. Dombrowski asked Mr. Coggins how many times the Reverse 911 system has been used. He responded about five times in the last few years, noting that it was not effective during the 2008 ice storm.

The council agreed to look into both systems.

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