With local governments relying more and more on technology, the effectiveness and efficiency of computer hardware and network infrastructures is critical to a county or city’s operations.

In Goshen County, however, things aren’t exactly going off without a hitch.

County Manager of Information Technology Gary Meerkreebs came before the county commissioners during Tuesday’s regularly scheduled meeting to explain a few problems with some of his department’s hardware.

The county’s core network suffered a failure about 10 days ago and upgrades are likely needed to help the system cope with the ever-increasing amount of data it handles, Meerkreebs said.

“It’s not an inexpensive solution,” he said, pointing out a likely price range of between $22,000-28,000. However, Meerkreebs added that technology giant Cisco Systems has a program that will help the county identify possible grant programs to help fund possible upgrades.

Meerkreebs said he hoped he wouldn’t have to approach the commissioners about the issue until the next budget cycle, but added that he’s not sure it’s something the county can wait that long to address.

“We’re trying to do this as inexpensively for the county as possible,” Meerkreebs said, while adding that he doesn’t want to install equipment that will only meet short term data needs.

Commissioner Robert Ward asked if the system upgrades would include room for future data growth, to which Meerkreebs responded that he always looks towards long-term solutions with technology projects.

In addition to the county’s core network issues, Meerkreebs also said the amount of data his department oversees is too large for its current backup system.

The department has already pared back the amount of data it backs up because of the storage shortfall, he said, adding that he’s started to look into different options to upgrade the current system.

In looking at potential off-site storage locations, he said the top preference would be the pricy prospect of running fiber optic lines to a remote location.

However, Meerkreebs told the commissioners that he’s quickly learned during his several months on the job that fiscal responsibility is just as important as having the latest technology.

With that in mind, he said other improvement options include storing backup hard drives in a secure location at Eastern Wyoming College, or looking into wirelessly sending the data to an off-site location, Meerkreebs said.

“We’re just trying to come up with some solutions,” he said.

In other commissioner’s action at Tuesday’s meeting:

- Goshen County Emergency Management Coordinator Shelly Kirchhefer told the commissioners the date and time is set for the county’s upcoming emergency exercise that will allow area firefighters to practice putting out ethanol fires, among other tasks. Kirchhefer said the event is slated for March 27 between 8 a.m. and noon on land just south of the Western Sugar Cooperative factory in Torrington. The group organizing the exercise will next meet Dec. 14, Kirchhefer said, noting that she’s been impressed with the number of entities slated to participate in the drill. “We got a lot of players coming aboard and I think it will be a good exercise,” she said.

- County Road and Bridge Superintendent Gary Korell updated the commissioners on the status of the Bear Creek Bridge project. Poor weather conditions slightly slowed down work on the bridge, but Korell said its completion isn’t too far on the horizon.

“I would think in the next couple of weeks that project will be complete,” he said.

- County Engineer Bob Taylor told the commissioners the prison road seeing project is about halfway complete, and added that the city has helped provide woodchips to help with efforts.

- Korell also informed the commissioners that roads department Director of Administrative Services Shiela Oliver recently put in her two weeks notice. However, Korell said people responded well to the advertisement for the position and said he thinks there’s a good crop of applicants to choose from.

“I think the transition will be pretty smooth,” he said.

- Korell said his department continues using its eight maintainer machines to help repair area roads that lost a lot of gravel during this. Roads in the northern part of the county aren’t in nearly as bad of shape as some south of the North Platte River, he said.

“We may shift all the machines to the south of the county to try to get it cleaned up,” Korell said.

- Commissioners Chairman Jim Hudelson notified the other commissioners that Torrington Mayor Leroy Schafer recently approached him about possibly including the county in a Transportation Enhancement Activities Local (TEAL) grant application for a walkway along 15th Avenue near the Stone Creek subdivision.

- County Fire Warden Bill Law told the commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting he plans to attend a rural fire board meeting this week in Casper.



For the complete article see the 12-02-2009 issue.

Click here to purchase an electronic version of the 12-02-2009 paper.

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