GUILFORD — Selectboard members say they are looking forward to welcoming former WKVT “Live and Local” host Steve West to the Sept. 9 meeting to discuss his proposal to land the town's information technology support business.
“He can talk us through it. He's a good talker,” said Katie Buckley, town administrator, during the Aug. 26 Selectboard meeting.”
West left WKVT in May after seven years hosting his talk show to focus full-time on Fearless Computing, the Brattleboro-based computer sales and service business he's owned since 2000.
Buckley said the town, struggling to restore land record information lost in a recent crash, “got a pretty rude awakening of what can happen with our computer system. We've been talking about storage and backup a lot lately, and this is a good idea,” she said.”
According to Buckley, West has proposed to assess the town's computer needs, help the current system run faster and more reliably, and to arrange offsite “cloud” backup.
Buckley said West's estimate for the work falls between $520 and $1,200 “for us to get healthy,” and then a flat fee of up to $1,200 a year “for regular service.” Buckley was quick to add, “We do have money in the budget for this.”
Buckley said it was understood the town would be scaling back its IT services with a different provider, “and the money that's in the budget is being used for the [town] website [project], and it would be to fund an IT person, so it's in there.”
The town does back up its data, but, Buckley said, “if the Town Office were to burn down, we'd be in trouble.”
Buckley said she would also ask West “as a courtesy” to take down the town's current website, designed and maintained by KeVaCo, of Bradford.
Visitors to www.guilfordvt.org are now directed to www.guilfordschool.org and told to click on the “Town Office” tab to access municipal information.
That new website, she said, offers “tons of information, way more than what we have [with the old website].”