County mulls updating annex electronics

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Gonzales County Tax Assessor-Collector Crystal Cedillo spoke to commissioners court Monday morning about the outdated servers and malfunctioning phone lines that often plague her office and the rest of the county annex in the newly remodeled Randle-Rather Building.
The item on the agenda was to look for quotes from vendors to update servers in the county offices. Cedillo described servers that needed current anti-virus software, security cameras that may not even be operational, and phone lines that can be down for hours at a time. She brought it to the attention of the court because something needed to be done.
Another flaw was a busted printer that is normally used to print county identification cards for certain access points in the building. She said that additionally, she is the only person caring for the server in her spare time, and she posts updates on Facebook when the phone lines are down — with stretches of inactivity ranging from 30 minutes to two hours.
She informed commissioners that she had three quotes from companies willing to fix the issues. County Judge David Bird mulled it over with commissioners briefly before asking her to return to their next meeting with additional information. The item was tabled.
Commissioners heard a report from Gonzales Emergency Services District #1 (ESD) Treasurer Donald Rihn regarding the audited financial statements of the ESD. Rihn presented the judge and commissioners detailed books for the past three years of receipts for the ESD, noting that all had been accounted for.
Previous to 2015, audits had not been performed and an auditor could not be found at a reasonable price. They did, however, come across one that only cost $7,500, which was hired for the current audits. Rihn also noted that the ESD is comprised of unpaid volunteers that accumulate training hours each year and that the ESD collects over $1 million in taxes each year.
In other business, commissioners:

  • Canvassed the votes of the recent Congressional District 27 special election, won by Michael Cloud
  • Awarded a bid of $18,890 to Kelly Painting for sealing of the exterior of the Randle-Rather Building
  • Discussed the lease agreement of the Old Jail with Preservation Gonzales, deciding to table the matter again
  • Discussed with Gonzales Underground Water Conservation District about placing monitoring wells on county-owned right-of-ways. It was decided that more information was needed on the matter regarding where county land ended and private land began.

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