T-L Photo Belmont County Sheriff Dave Lucas discusses the new Belmont County Sheriff’s Office mobile app at a recent commission meeting. Bonnie Zuzak, commission clerk, looks on.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Sheriff Dave Lucas is getting the word out about the new Belmont County Sheriff’s Office mobile app and encouraging residents and those in the surrounding area to download the app.

“The more people we get to download it, the better,” he said during a recent board of commissioners meeting.

Lucas said the app has been up and running for a couple of weeks, and the department has already made some changes and fine-tuned the app.

“There’s a lot of programming going on in it when you’re dealing with Google, Apple and stuff like that. It has gone good so far,” he told commissioners.

Lucas said he wants to make information more accessible to the public.

“Everybody these days has a smartphone, we all know. I’ve been to schools and asked the kids, and like 99% of the kids even have phones,” he said.

He said the app is available on any smartphone and is free in the App Store on Apple devices and in the Google Play Store for Android devices.

According to Lucas, the app has a lot of information and is a “one-stop shop.”

“You go on there, and you can see all the jail information, all the sex offenders information, the directory and you can see information about concealed carry, so it gives you all the information about our sheriff’s office,” he said.

People can also submit a tip for the office via the app.

Lucas said one important feature of the app is the push notifications. He said everyone who downloads the app can be notified immediately about road closures, missing persons, weather reports and other useful information.

“It’ll give you an audible sound. You open it up and it’ll be on the banner like an Amber Alert, and it’ll tell you exactly what it is,” he noted. “Everybody who’s downloaded it will immediately get the information.”

Lucas said all of the supervisors at the sheriff’s office are going through training to learn how to put information on the app.

Lucas added that during his 11 years as sheriff, he has also worked to boost the number of followers on the Belmont County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page. He said when he became sheriff in 2013, the Facebook page only had about 500 followers. Now the page has over 24,000 followers.

He hopes that the new app will be just as successful.

“So my thing is we get up there the same way,” he said.

Lucas said the department is still working out some kinks with the app.

“It’s not 100% yet, but we’re still working on it. We got to do this on the side of our regular duties, but so far, we’ve got a really, really good response,” he said. “I wanted to do this before I retire, and so I’m looking forward to finally getting it all done. It’s looking a lot better, but I’m not 100% satisfied, but it’s up and running.”

Lucas also thanked community members for their support.

“My office is not as good unless I have the community support and backing behind me,” he said.

Lucas said the work to develop the app was done internally, using the department’s funds. He declined to provide the cost of the work but said no taxpayer money was spent on the effort.

“To get it up and initially get it running, it’s expensive, especially on the programming side, but not $1 of taxpayer money was spent on it. We use internal monies that we generate like the commissary out of the jail and FOJ funds,” he said.

FOJ stands for Furtherance of Justice funds – an Ohio allowance for expenses the sheriff incurs in the performance of official duties and in furtherance of justice.

Lucas said that getting the app up and running was the most expensive part of the project.

“The only thing that we have to deal with from here is just an annual maintenance fee. We’re over the mountain. The big cost is done, and that’s a good thing,” he said.

Belmont County Commissioner Josh Meyers said he downloaded the app when it first came out and has received notifications about road closures due to accidents.

“It’s very handy,” he said.

To download the app, search for “Belmont County Sheriff OH” on the App Store or Google Play Store.