County has website up and running again

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

The cause of consternation for local officials and residents for months if not years, the Putnam County website is up and running again.

Commissioner Rick Woodall made the announcement Monday morning during the first commissioners meeting of February.

“Our county website has been a debacle the last month, or the last year, last two years, however you want to look at it,” Woodall said.

While the website had for some time been outdated at best and functioning only sporadically, it had been basically inaccessible in recent weeks.

As such, Woodall recently met with Jon Tesmer, who has been responsible for the website’s design and hosting since 2011.

Tesmer does not wish to do the work any longer, so Woodall looked for another solution and found it, at least temporarily, in Distinct Web Design (DWD), a local company operated by Vince Aguirre.

DWD was hired by Woodall, without the prior approval of fellow commissioners Don Walton and Dave Berry.

“I know that’s not normal,” Woodall said. “We talk about things and vote on them, but I thought this was kind of an emergency because departments count on that website.”

Walton and Berry did not voice any objections to Woodall’s decision.

Woodall reported that as of 8 p.m. Sunday, the website co.putnam.in.us was back up and running, though not yet at an optimal speed. This remained the case as of Tuesday afternoon.

The commissioners continue to hope they will have the ability to hire an IT professional to deal with this and other technology questions. At this point, the priority is to transfer microfilm work to the state and then reassess the budget.

The county has not yet hired a contract worker to transport existing microfilm work to the state microfilm office. The advertisement for the job closed on Wednesday, and the commissioners hope to hire someone during their next meeting.

In other business:

• The commissioners gave 911 Director Dave Costin permission to move forward with a grant application for possible future upgrades.

The grant, which is only in the planning stage at this point, would help the county upgrade to Next Generation 911, which would allow video to be integrated into 911 calls.

These videos could flow both ways, either from the caller to the dispatcher or from dispatcher to caller.

There are no set plans for when the state might actually offer the grant or when upgrades to Next Gen 911 might be coming. However, in getting the commissioners’ permission, Costin can now draft a letter of interest in the grants.

• The commissioners approved codifying the last five years of ordinances through American Legal Publishing.

This will serve as an update to the codification process of five years ago.

The cost to the county will be between $1,340 and $1,980, depending on how many pages the update ends up being.

• Three new appointees to the 911 Advisory Board were approved.

Greencastle Fire Department Assistant Chief Rob Frank was approved as the representative of the county fire chiefs. Mike Mahoy and David English are the two new commissioners’ appointments to the board.

• Woodall announced that he has planned an event to meet with residents on issues that may be of concern to them.

Coffee with the Commish is set for 8 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 23 at Jackson’s Family Restaurant (The Double Decker), 1058 Indianapolis Rd., Greencastle.

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    Bad governance.

    Was Joe Tesmer contracted to do the job? If so, what repercussions are being brought against for failure to fulfill the contract? If not, why was there no contract for a government service?

    Why did it take so long to become aware of the problem and resolve the problem?

    A County Commissioner takes it upon himself to hire someone to do the job without going through normal business process and no one has a problem with this? That is asking for trouble.

    All contract jobs that are for county business should be subject to a bid process. I can't help but wonder if some law wasn't broken during this process of finding someone else to do this.

    Ask your government questions. Make them accountable. Otherwise you will certainly get the government you deserve.

    -- Posted by dreadpirateroberts on Wed, Feb 6, 2019, at 9:02 AM
  • Well said Dread. A commissioner acting alone is unethical and possibly illegal. I tried that "new" website this morning and got nowhere. I hope when it get fixed it will have the commissioner meeting minutes posted like most other counties.

    -- Posted by Ben Dover on Wed, Feb 6, 2019, at 10:36 AM
  • That is NOT legal and should be null and void!!! Where is the county attorney?

    -- Posted by Falcon9 on Wed, Feb 6, 2019, at 12:25 PM
  • The Commissioners would like to invite everyone with their questions and concerns to the Double Decker on Feb. 23rd at 8 am. For Coffee with the Commish with Rick Woodall

    -- Posted by rickw on Fri, Feb 8, 2019, at 6:57 AM
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    Why not just do what you are supposed to do above board and in the light, "Commish"?

    Your little coffee klatch isn't an "official" event like, I don't know - perhaps a County Commissioners meeting where you will be on the record and where all of this should've been handled properly in the first place.

    -- Posted by dreadpirateroberts on Fri, Feb 8, 2019, at 12:06 PM
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