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At Monday’s West Easton Council meeting, a majority vote of 4-2 (Dees, Lewis, Nixon, T. Nodoline in favor – DePaul, H. Nodoline opposed) resulted in Council approving the purchase of a new computer system for West Easton.

The price tag of for the equipment, along with a $750 monthly support charge is a hard pill to swallow. Especially for me, because I like to think that there is always a better deal around the next corner and it bothers me to approve a price tag of $14,888 for computer equipment, especially after more than $5000 was spent on equipment last year by the previous Council.

Add that to the more than $30,000 spent on new financial software and it is understandable that some may believe there isn’t fiscal responsibility. The previous money spent makes the new expenditure a gut-twisting experience for all of us, but the pain was necessary.

If the new equipment was for my own personal use I wouldn’t buy it. The reason being that I would take the risk of buying something of a lesser quality and lower standard because it would be a risk that I alone would have to pay the price for, if it failed. I would buy refurbished equipment and save money. If the hard drive crashed, I would accept the loss of my data and curse only myself for having been an idiot to go a cheaper route.

The trouble is that I am not one who will impose the type of risk on an entire community, that I would take if it only affected me.

I, along with the other Councilmen who voted to spend the money on quality equipment from a highly rated company did so because we knew it had to be done. We are in the mess we are, because corners were cut and “cheap” was tried before. The belief that a Borough network system could be made up of refurbished and out of warranty computer equipment placed the burden of correcting that mistake on the present Council.

We have a refurbished server with a pirated copy of software running it. The server barely makes the minimum requirements of the new financial software that has to be installed on it. We have no backup system should it fail, or the hard drives become corrupted.

We have a battery backup unit that was built to power a desktop unit in the event of a power failure, not a server unit. There is also a security issue that I won’t detail here.

The system was patched together like Frankenstein building his monster. Only our monster was built with old cadavers and has a brain from a jar labeled “Abby Normal.”

The real problem is that people, including two on Council, can’t see the value of a quality network system that a business needs – and running a Borough is a business. Computers aren’t on display and can’t be seen by the public. It isn’t a new roof, a new swing set, neatly trimmed landscaping, or a new truck.

Residents don’t give compliments for job well done, when purchasing a computer system. They can’t see it and therefore it provides no “Wow!” factor for those who want to impress others with visual accomplishments.

It sits in a Borough Office and is taken for granted, if it is running as it should. A good computer system is only appreciated after a bad one fails.

What the new computer system provides is what West Easton has needed. It was needed more than anything else previously mentioned, and every day it has been delayed has had me far more worried than the possibility a Borough Hall roof might leak, or we wouldn’t be able to keep the streets clean of snow.

If the system we have now fails tonight, is hacked, or infected with a Trojan virus, we will be back to paper and pencil trying to rebuild a history of Borough finances and documents that would take months to rebuild, if it could even be done at all, considering the lack of some paper records and the destruction of old computers. That’s not to mention the personal information of every resident that might fall into the wrong hands.

New equipment and proper IT Support has been long overdue for West Easton. We had a previous IT person that sold us outdated equipment and overbilled us at every opportunity. And he charged us $129/hr.

Our new IT person, who you will hear named, “Gino,” in the meeting videos, was introduced by me to Council President Dan DePaul as a person who could get our computers to the point where the office might access some files. He changed out routers, and performed other tasks to assist the office. He gained the trust of the former IT person and got us farther than anyone on Council or even our solicitor could have accomplished – and he got it done faster than we would have been able.

He did me a favor in assisting us at a reduced price per hour because IT Support isn’t his real job. He knows how to do it, but it isn’t the job he does every day to feed his family. I had suggested two IT people “as needed” when Council approved Gino as an IT tech, but no other has been formally sought (and note that I abstained from voting on his being hired). He offered his services cheap that first day and that $35/hr price he charged was seen as another opportunity to save money by not paying for a real IT Support company.

The second IT person never materialized and suddenly Gino was expected to be the Borough’s lifeline in keeping the system up and running correctly. He was even asked to quote an entire system for us. It was something he knew better about doing. Doing so would have him blamed for anything that went wrong with that equipment. He has no employees to assist him and even he knows better than to get that deeply involved with a State Agency (Borough) computer system.

And he was expected to do it at cost. He was asked to look for suppliers and find the same items cheaper. Not much of an incentive for somebody who isn’t an employee of the Borough and won’t be paid for the time he spends doing searches for somebody who thinks matching equipment can be found for a better price.

Council President Dan DePaul made quite the fuss over a claim that other quotes weren’t sought. I let him vent without interruption, but we both knew that was false.

I reviewed some paperwork I was given when we first began our search for new equipment. The Borough Office did, in fact, request quotes from other sources. One company did not respond. Another offered only remote support of existing equipment we would have in place. If you count the request made to Gino by Dan DePaul, there were actually a total of 4 quotes sought. EZ Micro was the only one to respond with an amount and the cost of equipment seemed to be in line with prices of equipment that could be matched in a retail outlet.

So, in the video of the meeting when Dan DePaul asks what other quotes we got, he already knew the answer.

If left to Mr. DePaul, the search for a “cheaper” system would have likely continued for months and we would have probably ended up with some new start-up business saving us a few thousand bucks (maybe). During that search time, we wouldn’t have the new financial system installed with the risk of computer failure and the barely functioning office computers looming over our heads.

In my opinion, the new system that was purchased should serve the Borough for at least 10 years before it becomes obsolete for our needs.

And during those years future budgets can build in a line item designated for computer replacement when it becomes necessary. It would be a small amount each year that would eventually build to the point where it won’t hurt to spend the money as planned.