By STEVEN JUPITER
PITTSFORD—The Pittsford Selectboard convened for its regular meeting last Wednesday.
After the Town Manager’s and Rec Department reports, the Board heard from Dean Silloway of Silloway Networks regarding a proposed contract with the town for information technology (IT) support. The town had previously used Vermont Digital to maintain its computer systems, but that company abruptly ceased operations recently, leaving Pittsford without IT support.
Mr. Silloway, who is a Pittsford resident, explained that his company has had service contracts with other municipalities, including the Vergennes Police Department, and has been stepping up to service Vermont Digital’s former clients since the company closed.
Silloway’s services for the town would include email, storage, security, records retention, and on-call assistance, among others.
According to the quote in the meeting’s Selectboard packet, the immediate cost of a 3-year contract would be $7,736.22, which includes $5,129.02 in one-time set-up costs and then the first month of services for 17 computers at $2,412 each. This $2,412 cost would recur monthly for all
Even though the cost of Silloway’s services exceeds what Pittsford had budgeted for IT, Pittsford Town Manager David Atherton encouraged the Board to approve the contract.
“I’ve been through this before,” said Mr. Atherton, who dealt with ransomware when he was town manager in Brandon. “It was a tough decision for me to make when we did it the first time because I’m a bit frugal, but I know what happens if you have an attack too. There’s no monetary value you can put on that when it happens. The vulnerabilities with municipalities is crazy lately.”
Mr. Atherton referenced a situation in Norwich, Vermont in which malware entered the municipal computer system through an infected e-mail. While Pittsford continues to have some protection that was put into place by Vermont Digital, it currently has no IT support services that could turn to in the event of a system infiltration.
Board member David Mills moved to approve a 3-year contract and the Board unanimously voted in favor of the deal.
“It’s money well spent,” said Board member Tom Hooker.
The Board also unanimously approved a change to the timing of the town’s payments to the Otter Creek Watershed Insect Control District (OCW), which is an organization supported by Pittsford, Brandon, Leicester, Salisbury, Goshen, and Proctor to control the mosquito population in the area.
In the past, payments had been made annually to OCW from its constituent towns, but OCW has requested that payments now be made quarterly in order to improve the organization’s cash flow and ability sustain its operations.
The Board also approved Mr. Atherton to replace Board Chair Alicia Malay as one of Pittsford’s two representatives to the Board of OCW. Pittsford’s other representative is Stephen Belcher, who is now President of OCW.
The Board’s final piece of public business for the evening was the approval of an order in the amount of $76,795.73.
