Information Technology Committee - Regular Meeting

[Music] order this meeting of the IT committee and we'll take a roll call. Bob Hassinger, I'm still here. Bob Carol. Yes, sir, I'm here.

And Dave Robinson is here. Amar Clark notified us that he would not be present and as did Lucas Remlard. We do have a quorum and in attendance with us is assistant town administrator William Blake, director of planning Fiona Coughlin. So now that I've got the meeting properly started and recording for posterity, our first agenda item is public input. Uh we do not have any Zoom attendees to offer us any public input. If any one of us has a matter that counts as public input because it's not otherwise on our agenda, now would be the time. And seeing none, our next agenda item is scheduled to be committee reorganization. Um, seeing as how only three of the five committee members are present, I would not be opposed to putting that off until a subsequent meeting when all five of us can participate. Any objection? Any thoughts?

Need a motion? No. No. I think if if ever if if there is no disagreement with the idea of punting it, we will just punt it and the chair will put it on the agenda for the next meeting. Move we table.

That's one way to look at it. Want to keep this don't we need don't need to make it overly formal here. Uh the ne the next agenda item is update from town administrator. I don't know if if will if if if you have anything from Evan that you that Evan needs to bring to the committee's attention or anything from you that might count as a sort of an update from the TA's office. Uh no the IT services RFP and the public Wi-Fi project are on the agenda and I would say those are the two biggest things to discuss. All righty. Good. So anyway, nothing nothing beyond that. Uh, so the next agenda item is the public Wi-Fi project update. So I think that's what Fiona's here for.

Yes. Hello members of the committee. Thanks for having me this evening. Um, I am Fiona Coughlin. I'm the uh director of planning and community development for the town. Bob and Dave know that well. Um, we spend every second Monday together. Um, but I just wanted to uh address the committee about the status of this uh project that we were able to get off the ground. I'm very excited about it. Um, originally, you know, at the impetus of the project, um, I had approached the cable advisory committee. Um, and I do believe that I also did have a conversation with the IT committee many months back when this was first being introduced. So, um, I'm happy to say that, uh, we have made great progress. Um, we are essentially at the end of this pilot project. Um, for those folks who might be wondering why we're doing this, uh, there was a study done in 2021, um, the local the local rapid recovery plan. Um, and within that plan, there was a recommendation to, um, create Wi-Fi hotspots around Grafton and public areas. So, what we did was uh, we utilize the existing um, Fman network it's called. So it's the fiber uh fiber fiber optic um network that um exists in the town that was implemented many years ago um and is a wonderful asset the town has. It can it provides um critical infrastructure to um schools and municipal buildings and services along the main corridors in town. So, we were able to capitalize on the existence of that network and uh create connections to three parks in town that are um just off of the network. Um Whitney Park, um also some may know it as Mil Street Park, which is adjacent to the um the fire station um

off of North Main Street. uh we do have additional plans for that area um to kind of beautify it and make it a community gathering space. So um we're uh this is kind of the first step in that effort. The second park was Mill Villages Park which is already a wonderful beautiful park um that the town has in South Grafton and um the third park was oh my gosh the common I'm sorry I just had a I had a blank moment there I apologize. And so we uh and also provide uh free Wi-Fi to the Grafton Common. So originally the scope of work included a fourth location which would have encompassed Perry Hill Park but there was issues with accessing power from the pole the telephone pole which is where the wife the hotspot would be located and we would have had to get additional um approval from National Grid. Um the ownership of the poll you know was was in question. So, you know, based on the scope of work, um, we decided to move forward with the three options and evaluate, you know, future, um, installations at at maybe Perry Hill Park in another way. Um, we actually ended up coming in, you know, under under budget, but not by much. So, it actually worked out pretty well. Um, the funding for this project came from uh, economic development ARPA funds as well as a municipal fiber grant from the state. was completely funded for this first year of the pilot. So the goal is now to just advertise this widely as much as possible uh so that people will utilize the graft and free Wi-Fi network um because we will really be relying on user data to make the argument to continue providing these hotspots in the future. Um obviously the common is a huge gathering space and we're not really worried about um users uh in that location. Um, and I know Mil

Villages Park is also pretty um popular in town, but we uh but yes, so essentially, you know, the fi the hotspots are installed by contract. They're done. They're making a slight adjustment at Mill Villages to move the um the box on the um overhang there up slightly, but the commons completely installed. And then there was additional uh work that needed to be done um at Mill Street because we needed to utilize the connections at the fire station and there was some rodent damage on to the fibers at that location. So contract through the um through this effort fixed the rodent damage and then installed um the new hotspot and that one is up and running. And it was a it was pretty it was honestly remarkably very quick from the time that we were like okay we're ready to go and it took maybe like two weeks to get everything really up and running. Full tests have been done. Um they've been into town contract rather what has been into town hall to connect um to connect to the headends run tests and everything is working smoothly. So um they've issued their final invoices and yeah we're we're we're off to the races. I have a project page that is now up. So I would ask you all to you know spread the word about this initiative. Again it's it's this is really a a pilot and it will be contingent on you know people using it. I I we do have some you know after speaking with the TA's office like we there is money in the um in the I uh you know the general technology budget to kind of keep this going for for the three hotspots but still we do want to be able to demonstrate the um efficiency of this program and that it's you know that that people in town are enjoying it and using it and um yeah so I'm happy to answer any questions about the project. I will um just say at the

top that I am um at the bottom now because I'm done. But uh I'm not the most techsavvy. So I will try my best to speak intellectually about the uh infrastructure of the Wi-Fi network uh the Wi-Fi and the um the hotspots themselves. Um but Contract is a really wonderful vendor to work with. They've done a lot of great work um all throughout the Commonwealth. They do a ton of these projects are kind of the go-to people and I'm happy to put anybody in contact with um Tony there um or Pat who did the installation. Um they're really great, wonderful guys. So if you have any questions, fire away and I might have to follow up on a few.

Yeah, I'm I'm curious what the ongoing cost is. Most of the money we were talking about was equipment and fiber that you know capital expense. Um I'm not sure what ongoing costs there are. It's just part of the network basically at this point. The FMAN. Yes, that's a good question, Bob. So I do believe that there's a fee associated with the individual hotspots themselves have them running. It's marginal, but it is still a fee nonetheless. So, I don't understand that. So, I'd be curious to to find out.

If there's not, then that would be great. But I do believe that there is um that I remember that conversation um we had at the beginning of the project because I was curious about keeping this going and and if they you know we would have to be stating our case every year to the boards and committees about keeping this um keeping this running and um I spoke to Evan and Evan said that you know it'll probably just be a minor fee to actually run the hotspot itself and and provide power to the hotspot. Yeah. Bob Carol.

So, just to kind of um springboard on what Bob said, so there's got to be a device, a hot spot um at the end that is doing the Wi-Fi and that needs to be managed and patched. So, who's doing that? So that is going to be um so we do work with so CMD does the software side of things but contract we can um work with them going forward to help with the the maintenance if there's issues

and so I would imagine this is a total different segment not attached or essentially airgap from our town network right and I don't know how CMD would get there but I guess they can right

it's interconnected to to be able to um log into these devices. Um so yeah, I think if we could get that information at least, you know, get those answers that would be good because it needs to be someone that manages the configuration, firewalls, routing, that sort of stuff on those. And then also like are the um SSIDs where you know someone would connect and see are they is there any like standard or convention like you know wrapped in public Wi-Fi blah blah blah you know if I go to one site the other site the other site I see do we know?

Yes. Yes. So it's um the Wi-Fi network pops up automatically and it's Grafton free Wi-Fi is the name. Okay. And then um is there any signage? So no, but um I have that on my radar because obviously that's going to be a huge piece of this. Um we do have specs from our wayfinding and signage um effort that we did fairly recently. Specs and designs that we can share with Sunshine Signs.

Um right. So, I just need to have a a conversation about um you know, where where I guess the funding for that comes from and if I need to be looking at um you know, making a request or looking for a grant or or something. I know the time is of the the essence to get that done. So, and and I and I know you're probably not the right person. Yeah. I don't want to get I'm definitely not

too down in the weeds on the tech part, but um so usually when there's a something like this, a Wi-Fi or whatever, you know, you you you see the SSID and then when you hit it, then it presents you, you know, with some kind of disclaimer and then you need to um add yourself or there needs to be some sort of handshake or protocol or acceptance, you know, how how are we doing all that? And then furthermore, you know, if I'm a bad actor, right, and I want to go do bad things, I'm gonna go park up there, do some war driving, and and spoof the network, and say I'm grappling Wi-Fi, people will all connect to my devices, and I grab everything.

So, we want to make sure that how we're doing this, we're not enabling or making it easy for people that have bad intent. Right. Right. Right. I do. I'm just trying They do this in airports all the time. Yes. So there's I do know that um so that you know I will say that we are not requiring any sort of password. So it's really just a matter of logging which makes which makes it easier I guess for people to join for whatever reason. Um, but I'm just trying to pull up some um some of this.

But there should be like at least something to click on or and then we should have like the town logo and Yes. make it so that okay people can so at least it's not like trivial for someone to you know create the you know the bad sites. Right. So, you're saying um make sure that there's a disclaimer that says, you know, you'll be using this Wi-Fi network responsibly, at my own risk, blah blah blah, right? And then I would think that's also would allow you to track because you want statistics on, you know, adoption and usage and um how long people are on and what time they're on and and that sort of thing, right? Um

yes. So, um, that would all allow that. And you could put, you know, you could put a form on there if people want to leave their information or, you know, whatever. I mean, you depends how crazy you want to go with this, right? But at least we should have someone, whether it's CMD or whomever, take a once over and look at how we're, you know, people are authenticating, logging in, and what the presentation looks like. Yes. Yes. So, we're not just open up Wi-Fi and enabling a lot of people that want to do bad things.

Sure. Yeah. No, I I I totally I totally get that. I mean, and I I do know and I will say um Contract did work extremely closely with CMD on the integration of this. Okay. So, it's probably there. We just need to verify. Yeah. Yeah. Because they do have Yeah. Yeah, because I think that that was one of CMD's concerns is like from the security side like making sure that all of the same protocols are in place for like schools or wherever the town

Exactly. people could get, you know, basically we're facilitating and supporting them committing crimes, right? So they need to blacklist, whitelist, you know, conting because we don't want people, you know, doing um ch child pornography and stuff on our right. Yeah. Absolutely. So I So Bob, so just so I have it um straight just confirming um the disclaimer and the maybe the easiest because again I I don't want to put this on you. Maybe the next time we have a meeting, just have Charlie or whomever set this up with CMD come in.

Sure. And um they can kind of lay it out. Yeah, we're we're probably due to have Charlie and company, you know, you check in with us. We we haven't it's been a while since we've met with them. I think we've we've sort of informally you tried to touch base with them once a year or so. It's probably been longer than that now. Yeah, that I can make sure that that happens. Yep.

Yeah. I think it basically it's you it's there's there's like what what what does a user see when they you know try to connect? I mean, you know, there there should be at a minimum a landing page where you know, we we're telling them you're using this at your own risk and click okay to acknowledge it, which then gets you in gets you through to the internet. Yeah, I might even drive by and test it out tomorrow, my way to work. I

mean, that that's what I've seen in in a number of places where there is a you know, they they advertise public Wi-Fi access is you have just a landing page where you acknowledge that that they're they're not responsible for anything you do on the internet and and you're responsible for being a good internet citizen or what whatever. Sure. Yeah.

Some places go so far as to insist on collecting your email address uh or other information. I don't I don't know that we would need to but I think back to Bob Carol's point is it you know it it would be good for us to be aware of what the what the process is on that on that side and then on the back side of things you know what what kind of information are we able to collect to help us evaluate the success of this program yeah absolutely I will I will

the white list blacklist content filtering that's big stuff So, you know, and you can try it if you're real ambitious. Try to go to a bad place. See if it blocks you. You have to know about a bad bad place first. Yeah, I am. The internet's full of them. So,

yeah. No. Yeah, I I Yeah, I definitely agree. Um, and I will make sure to get more concrete answers the next time. Sorry, I didn't even think of bringing that. I should have come prepared with that information but I do know that um CMD and Contra have worked closely on it and there is there is an added there is a level of security just the where that is I I just don't want to say something that's right well those guys know this stuff so yeah there are I'm sure that it's there and then you know the other piece we'd want to make sure that you know the communication's encrypted right it's it's not sniffable and all that stuff and I'm sure they set it up that way So,

okay. And then just Bob just so is the question that you had previously about the configuration of the firewalls and the routing is that related to um the screening that we just discussed or is that a separate um I just want it's all kind of it's all kind of the same thing. Okay, got it. Yeah. Awesome. Great. Yeah, we kind of want to work out these like kinks and like Well, I suspect it's all there. We just don't know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I'm Yeah. I'm kind of cautiously uh go, you know, starting to like I created the project page and I but I haven't brought this to the select board or I haven't brought this to any other like groups besides the TA's office and obviously the planning board knows until we Yeah. until we get this final leg of things. Oh, it was live up there if someone knew about it. Say that again. I said these hotspots are live if someone knew about it, right? Yes, that that's right. Yeah, technically they're live. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, maybe I'll try my phone if I'm up there. Yeah. Yeah, I think I'll stop by at each one. Okay.

So, so you uh you you do have some thoughts about letting everybody know that um Yeah. See, seeing as how the uh the what prompted this idea in the first place was the thought that free Wi-Fi access to the public at the town's parks would encourage folks to use the parks would be an additional amenity available to them. And obviously if no one knows about it, it's not going to be very successful. But yeah, I mean if you want to be when you started out this thing, you said one of your So your next step is one of your next steps is to publicize it. Okay.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Once I'm able to just confirm some of the concerns that were raised here so we're not, you know, we're not having to backtrack once the word gets out. Yeah. When when we're ready to encourage the general public to start using it, that's when we start publicizing it. Yep.

Yep. uh based on some of the discussions here we you know we you know it would be good for us we as the IT committee are particularly interested in understanding some of the technical details of you know how access is controlled and managed and you know just to assure to pro provide us with a level of insurance and like Bob Carol said these you contract and CMD you know know this technology pretty well so it's it's it's virtually certain that that they've implemented it in an appropriate way.

Yes. And I I will say that, you know, part of the reason why there was so much time that passed between initially approaching you about this many many months ago and now is because they were very CMD in particular were very very cautious about the you know the rollout of this and making sure all those bases were covered. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

as as I was working on early, I was felt quite confident that our in know our our network uh internet support and uh contract would be taking care of it just fine. Right. I mean, the other thing too is, you know, just thinking through this, like if I were a neighbor, right, I'd stop paying my charter for FiOS. I'd just log in, I'd watch all my movies, and there you go, right?

Yeah. I mean, the the radius, like the coverage radius isn't that forgiving, I will say. Um, you definitely have to be it's like one one device, one hot spot, right? Yeah. Not attached to anything. Yeah. I I believe that Mil Street may Whitney Park would may be an instance where a couple of homes might be able to pick up, but it would be limited. Yeah. Okay.

That's a good point. All right. Uh, anything else? Any other questions for Fiona? Anything else? Are there Are there other towns near us that have this that we know?

I near us. I'm not sure. I thought Upton had a program actually. We modeled this one off of um, South Hadley. Um and then you know contract has done a ton of work like on Cape like Southeastern Mass like obviously new you know the big players like obviously like C the Camidages and the New Bedfords and all those folks like they have a full-on program with at every park but um yeah South Hadley was where we looked at. It's not really in our immediate area but I think this is relatively um new and cool for for our for our part of the world. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. we put the word out.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's that's going to be the big part of making sure. I mean, if the cost is is marginal and you know, but again, you know, could be a point in time where times are tough, then we have to really be like, okay, we're have to if if three people a year are using this at Mil Villages Park, then why are we doing this? Yeah, sort of at the other

at the other extreme of you know issues with usage of this is if I mean we this this is riding on our existing internet connections and if you had an unusually high amount of internet traffic, say you had hundreds of people at each of the parks watching Netflix videos,

uh that could uh if not if if bandwidth is not managed they could overwhelm our internet connection such that our you know other town business would be would have difficulty accessing the internet but I I would venture to say that in their design of this between contract and and this probably more CMD's area of expertise is they they they probably uh will put a b an aggregate bandwidth limit on how much of the traffic from this public Wi-Fi you how much bandwidth it's allowed to consume because you can you you can easily your your firewall you can throttle that you can you can

uh this is probably at it's at very it's at at the very least it's on its own vlan and you can and you can limit the uh the the the the amount of traffic that can be can be carried on Yeah, there there there is a firewall in place because I remember them specifically saying that. Right. I seem to recall some discussion along the way that the times that are likely to have high bandwidth needs are different from the times the town and the schools need. Yeah. Yeah, the case,

you know, on the on the 4th of July, no one's uh on the town or the schools are doing much. Um and there'll be a lot of lot of business to be transacted on the common. Right. Right. Yeah. People will be using on the weekends and in the evenings and stuff. Yeah. And I I guess I'm partly remembering this potential issue from from my days working for Verizon on the uh the file service where we uh we we had discussions about you know you know over overloading the finite bandwidth of of of a fiber optic strand. But

in a number of cases we concluded that it could it could never get to be a problem. In other cases, we actually did take some steps to uh to to limit how much anyone customer customer could use at any moment, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I hope that's a problem that we have. I hope people use it. I think it's it's one of these things that you you want to make sure you have some controls in place just in case. Yes. Yes. So we don't want it overloaded and we want to have control but I definitely would like to see a lot of traffic internal traffic going on. So

yeah network traffic management those were the days. I mean we did it differently in the switch telephone network than we do it on packet switch networks. You lost me Dave. Yeah, we don't need to get into a a discussion of that level of technical detail.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you all. I appreciate your time. So, I will I'm going to try and get these answers sooner rather than later because this is very timesensitive. Um, you know, it's a priority for for for everybody in the town. So, um yeah, I'm going to go I'll drive by the hotspots, make sure they're you know, if the the what protocols are in place. I'll just probably send some screenshots to Dave. Maybe um Dave you can circulate it amongst the committee members or and then make sure Charlie comes to the next one um the next meeting and yeah just follow up on the other stuff as well. So awesome. Yeah. So you can place a Wi-Fi call over it

your phone. You could do the settings and change it from 5G to Wi-Fi and you should be having phone calls. Yeah, I know. I can't wait to see like how it's working. I mean, you know, Tony was out there last week and said it was working great. Speedy. All good. So, yeah. Good deal. Take my phone up there. Connect and run a speed test. Yeah. Hey, we got 100 gigs of speed on this thing. 100 gigs. I don't get that at my home network.

Awesome. Okay, sounds good. Well, good. Thank you all again. Appreciate it. Thanks for the update, Fiona. Yeah, no problem. Talk to you soon. All right. Bye.

Okay, that's good. Um, next agenda item which is probably going to be the major topic of discussion for this evening is the IT services RFP which I guess actually we sort of look we've got two documents that are very closely related. One is the IT services RFP which at least the one that you sent out William is the one titled what? uh it should be titled IT support services RFP without IT director responsibilities a red line document.

Yeah. So that's with the without IT director and that what that kind of goes along with is the proposed job description for an IT director.

Yes. which as I was looking those over the the largely in the redlinined RFP you have removed a number of responsibilities which are going to be placed in the into the IT director's job description. So that's sort of think largely what I what I saw in reviewing the RFP was aside from some dates which will obviously be updated to reflect whatever date the RFP is actually finalized and and issued. Uh but yeah, there's ma mainly I saw the a number of responsibilities removed from the IT services RFP and placed into the director's job description. Is that a sort of a roughly speaking is that what we're looking at?

Yeah, I would say removed with an asterisk next to it. There's a note in two locations that the successful vendor will be responsible for for providing those services, specifically the on-site support for roughly six to nine months after contract award. Um because the IT director position isn't something that Evan and I are talking about creating right now, but it's something we're looking to create before the end of the fiscal year.

Yeah, that's that's that's the way it looked to me as I as I read through the RFP. So any other any with that in mind, are there any is there anything any of us see in the RFP besides that that that we would suggest changing or rethinking or whatever.

Uh and real quick, Dave, if I may before JSON, so two things to note. One of the other changes is the length of the contract. Uh, so the last time we went out to bid, it was a one-year contract with multiple one-year extensions. Um, we haven't really found that to be a conducive way to do it. So, we wrote this as a three-year base contract with two one-year options to extend. Uh, so theoretically, if at the end of three years, we like the successful vendor, we can have them for two more. Uh the other thing is it mentions uh attachment A as the asset inventory which will be all of the machines that the successful vendor is responsible for monitoring and maintaining. Um that is not in the document you have because since the last time we did it, we've had some tech changeover and I just don't have the updated list yet.

Yeah. But that will go out with the final RFP document. Yeah. So, Bob and Bob, your thoughts on this RFP and relatedly on the uh IT director position. Been waiting for that IT director for uh how many years this committee existed? Oh gosh.

Uh that's at least how long I've been waiting. And we've been we've talked about it. I've beat up on it many many times. you need. Well, anyway, it's come to where we need it enough to um even in challenging times. So, um, William, what's the thinking with putting the incumbent or the existing vendor in here in the second paragraph? As in why are they included? No. Why do we name them specifically?

Because invariably that is the first question we get asked is who's been doing this over the life of the contract? Um, does that matter? Uh, in my opinion, no. But it's it's just a matter of do we put it in here or do we put it in the answer agenda when we get asked that question? Don't answer it and just say that, you know, we're we're not going to, you know, respond to that. You you can't do that. Uh, you have to tell them. Yep. If they ask a question, you have an answer. You got to give it. Okay.

I I could be a nitpicker here and say that that sentence CMD has been now providing our services for a lot more than just the past year. I don't know if it I don't know if that matters in the wording of this sentence. That's a great And then I don't want to get too pedantic, but like when you say security services, does that include physical security or just IT security?

Uh can you give me an example of physical security? Physical security would be like uh closed circuit TV, uh cipher locks, um anything that's you know badging, that sort of stuff.

Uh no. Um so our camera system is all verca. That's a different vendor and there are no so just to put in information security services add information. Yeah, you one one might think that someone reading this as a RFP for IT services, one might think it would be inferred that it was just information security, but given how many of some of the security systems that Bob Carol just mentioned, given that some of them are also based on information technology, IT equipment and some kind, it it's it probably is to Bob's point probably is worth being just a little bit more, you know, specific about it just to clarify what we are and and are not looking for here. Especially when you have access control and databases like you know when you have the you have badges and you have to swipe to get through you know into like if you go to UMass or anywhere for controlled access and all that swiping and stuff but that just that

is all under um security. Okay. Yeah. I am in favor of making it as specific as we can. I think the last time we bid IT services, we had to do three question and answer agenda because we just kept getting more and more and more questions. Yeah. Okay. To the extent that you can anticipate the questions. Correct. Somebody's always going to come out with something wild that you'd never think of. Yeah. Okay. And you got to fix up all the dates and the timelines and all that. Yep.

Yep. Okay. Yeah, the rest of this is pretty, you know, conventional. Um, yeah, with the exception of again the updated asset inventory and what we're carving out, it is very similar to the last IT RFP we did.

Is there anything that either of you guys, Bob and Bob's see here that maybe we should be including that hasn't been included in terms of what we want the vendor to do. Other words, did we miss did we miss anything last time around? So, and I haven't spent the time with the IT director job and responsibilities like policies, standards, all that sort of stuff. the strategy and plan that I would guess would be incumbent on that job and their responsibilities. Okay. So,

yeah, that was I saw that listed in the IT IT director job. Yeah, I

Yeah, I think one of the goals of an IT director is when you have something like the Wi-Fi in the park, you have somebody who can actually speak the language that the three of you speak, who's very techsavvy, unlike, you know, Fiona and I by our own admission. So, um, okay. Okay. You you have it laid out, um, the rubrics and how you going to evaluate these down in the section seven and eight.

That is one of the good things about a request for proposal. If there's a more advantageous bid bidder that is not the low bidder, we have criteria where we can award them the contract. Right. Right. Right. Yep. Are you going to ask these guys financially for like a rate card or anything like that or is the just uh they have how are they supposed to respond with the financials as in what the service will cost? Yeah. Uh so that's down in attachment B. That's the price proposal sheet. It breaks it down by Okay. I got a new line item.

Server administ hourly compens. Okay, so you're kind of asking it. Um, okay. I mean, if this works for you, usually don't they give them like a spreadsheet to put all this stuff in it?

I'm not entirely sure on that. So, again, the last time we bid it, this is the price sheet that we've been using and we haven't gotten any objections to this yet.

Okay. Um, and then how do you guys do like the uh references like the due diligence as far as um, you know, like a vendor assessment and whether they're qualified and all that sort of stuff. Uh so that's where the comparative criteria come into play. Uh and the references we do check them for whoever the apparent low bidder and advantageous bidder are.

But you don't ask or request like sock 2 any sort of CSS anything like that or or ask them to submit them you know if they're ISO certified right or if they're Fed ramp or you know I mean there's a billion standards. Uh so we have gotten certifications and that typically comes under item C for the prof uh personnel expertise. Uh we ask about you know substantial amount of relevant demonstrable experience. Uh we can certainly put in there that we want copies of any relevant certifications or

if there are ones in particular that we're looking for. Um, so when are you when when are you looking to let this this has to go out as soon as possible? Yep. Well, I don't want to fix what's not broken. So, I I just say I would say go with it, you know, instead of trying to I mean, you when was the last time you did this? Uh, last time we did this was like three years ago. three ago. Yeah. Yeah. And um what did you get for respondies? You give me one moment. I can pull that up

again. Is it like you got like two or three or something back? Uh I think we got a pretty fair amount. Okay. Because again I was the thinking here is you know you you want enough information to make your job easy and to make the decision right

and then you know based on whoever the selection committee that's listed in here wants to have as a vendor right to give you what you need to support your decision right for your selection. So there's there's no no one can come back and contest, right? Or complain or any of that stuff, right? You get want it like here it is. It's done. Move forward. But if it worked before, I I would say, you know, don't break what's not broken. Uh, last time we did this, we received seven proposals.

Okay, that's good. Yep. It's always nice to have several proposals to choose from. It's unlike the case of putting out an RFP and only getting one response, right? Yeah. Which and um Yeah, those those respondees I I would imagine this is, you know, pretty small world, right? They're probably all known to each other and they're known entities, right? So,

Yep. And uh something that you find is we have to keep a planholder list of who requests the documents and that's a public record. So, invariably they all ask it, they all see it, they all know who bid the project. Right. Right. And then that way you don't have to do a whole lot of due diligence and checking because everyone knows who these who all fitting. So good enough.

Yeah, I I think you know what you got here is good. Now you know the only other thinking is the timing for the IT director. um when's he coming on her? So, we don't have a definitive answer for that. I know Evan wants to wait until later in the current fiscal year. Um that's why we have a six to nine month range in there for the on-site support services.

Yeah, because the the only again thinking this through if I was the IT director, it would be like why did you contract this before he they would want to do this, right? But if it if it's it just doesn't work and the time is up, then you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Unfortunately, I don't think the timing is going to line up for it this particular year. Um, but I I I envision that expire. I'm sorry. When does the current contract with CMD expire? Uh, eight days ago.

Oh, okay. All right. And then when were you so how are you going to hire an IT direct? Just post the job and see who applies? Yep. Okay. You don't do like a search firm or anything like that? Uh not for positional. So normally no. Um granted we've never hired an IT director before. So yeah, it might prove to be a different animal. Uh, typically I've only seen search firms brought in for town administrators and then police or fire chiefs. Okay. All right. So, probably not. So, I mean, usually to hire someone, it's at least a couple of months, right, between,

you know, putting it out there, interviewing, extending the offer, negotiating, blah blah blah. So, um, if you're already on borrowed time with the managed services and Yeah. So, okay. It just the timing, as you said, William, not going to line up. So, Yep. Yep. for the the next round for the next RFP for IT services, possibly even for consideration of the one-year extensions of this contract. The IT director, who we hope will have been in place for a couple years by then, will

have a lot to say about it. Yep. And um on the So when you engage you select the vendor does um CMD or whomever do they have a contract with the town? The the successful vendor for this? Yes. Yep. There's a And in the contract is it you know cancelellable? Yeah. So you can give them like 30 days or whatever is in there. Yep. Okay. All right. So I mean if it went really You know, if we picked someone and it was an unknown and it really went bad, right? It went sideways and we got this new guy on board, we could get out of this, we wouldn't be locked in for three years. Correct.

Okay. All right. So, at least you've got, you know, some safeguards built in. Yep. Yeah. We have uh, you know, standard contract forms that have been prepared for town council that we use for any major procurement we do. And there's always that out in there, I I would think. Right. Okay. All right. Um, yeah. So, I'm good. I think, you know, we don't want to, you know, overengineer this or, you know, as they say, better done than perfect, right? Yep. Yep. Don't want to let the uh perfect be the enemy of the good. That's the other one.

As long as the good is good enough. Yeah. And since this is essentially a uh aside from the shifting of responsibilities to the yettobe named IT director, this is essentially the same RFP that we used three years ago. Yep. Other than the the differences that William has already explained to us. All right. So with that, any any other suggestions, comments? Otherwise, we'll expect William to publish this tomorrow and the bids Uh tomorrow or Friday. Yeah, it should go up quickly. Oh, he's being facicious. Oh, no. Okay.

Procurement is one of those, you know, exciting areas of the job, right? Had had this committee been able to successfully organize a meeting last month, this RFP could already be out on the street. Could have just gone ahead and shoved it out there without discussing with us. Well, you know, we we talked about having a meeting about it and I wanted to honor that. So, and it's good feedback. It's good to discuss and you caught a couple of little things that I missed, which was nice.

Well, good. I'm sure if we thought about it more for another month or two, we could probably tweak it a little bit more, but we just we just decided that we didn't want to do that. Well, what I can do is when it is out, I can send you the final RFP so that way you can look at it for the next three years and really get your thoughts together on it. Okay, so that covers those two things. And here it's almost 8 o'clock already. And since we only have 60% of our committee here at the meeting, I don't know what else we want to do tonight. On the agenda, we had it policy discussion which we want to spend a fair amount of time on that to give it what it's due and uh I would be willing to punt that to our next meeting. uh we had on our agenda to review and approve previous meeting minutes of which we now have two meetings minutes waiting to approve but again we at our last meeting we decided to uh punt this because we didn't have all of us here any thoughts anybody want to go ahead and do the previous meeting minutes or defer that also

I just assume defer it okay with with we will we will punt that to next month. Hopefully we have a hopefully we can schedule ourselves. Summertime is as I said before summertime is kind of difficult to get a meeting together but we'll see what we can move we adjourn. Second moved and second that that we be adjourn moved. Must be time for us to adjourn. I can't talk straight anymore. Moved and seconded that this meeting be adjourned. Mr. Carol Hi, Mr. Hassinger. I and Mr. Robbins votes. Motion carried unanimously.