My county offers a service through Nixle - http://www.nixle.com/

It's 100% opt-in, it can deliver messages via phone or email. You can tailor it to specific alerts from certain departments or agencies.

I think all government services should offer their citizens this and let them configure what they want or if they want it at all.
If someone wants to bury their head in the sand or refuse to adopt the technology, so be it.