PETITION OF:

SECTION 1. Notwithstanding the provisions of any general or special law to the contrary, the commonwealth and its cities, towns and counties shall implement a system to notify citizens or employees thereof in case of emergency, state of emergency, natural disaster, acts of God or other events that warrant notification of the public of danger, potential danger or inconvenience to its health, safety or infrastructure. Said system shall include, but not be limited to notification by telephone, cellular telephone, cellular text messaging service, cellular short message service and electronic mail. Said system shall send notification to the public, or any subset thereof deemed appropriate by state, city or town administrators, within one hour of activation and any notification or alert shall be in a form easily decipherable by the population at large.

Said system shall include a method by which citizens may subscribe and unsubscribe to public notifications and no personal information of subscribers to the system shall be shared with any private entity. Violations of this subsection shall be punished by a fine of not less than $10,000 per offense.

The commonwealth, cities, towns or counties or any political subdivision thereof, public officials and public employees of said jurisdictions, shall not be liable in any civil or criminal proceeding for notifications that reach or do not reach subscribers, nor shall any company, provider or telecommunications company or bearer of such a system of telecommunications be liable in any court of the commonwealth for successful or unsuccessful notification of the public, or subset thereof, through said system of notification. No person, public or private entity shall be liable for injuries or losses sustained by residents or subscribers to the notification system that result from any successful or unsuccessful notification to said subscribers, and no person shall be able to claim such injuries or loss, or standing for such injury or loss, in any court of jurisdiction in the commonwealth.

SECTION 1A. To provide for certain unanticipated obligations of the commonwealth, to provide for an alteration of purpose for current appropriations, and to meet certain requirements of law, the sums set forth herein are hereby appropriated from the General Fund unless specifically designated otherwise herein, for the several purposes and subject to the conditions specified herein, and subject to the provisions of law regulating the disbursement of public funds for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006, provided that said sums shall be in addition to any amounts previously appropriated and made available for the purposes of said items.

For the purposes of implementing a public notification matching grant program; provided, that a 50 cent state match shall be made for each dollar cities or towns of the Commonwealth invest in public alert notification systems; provided further, that eligible state matching funds shall be made available to municipalities that invest at least $25,000 and only up to $100,000 invested; and provided further, that funds from this item shall be made available to said municipal governments for the enhancement of citizen notification in times of emergency, inclement weather, traffic hazards, school closings and other incidental or regular events requiring notification of the community or subset thereof; provided further that said notification system shall include, but not be limited to, notification by telephone, cellular telephone, cellular text messaging service, cellular short message service and electronic mail ......................................................... $500,000