After a year of broken promises, Council President Ron Heckman's motherboard short-circuited and the usually affable Councilman made clear to Fiscal Affairs Director Steve Barron that the IT department, which reports to Barron, needed to fix the problem.
"Not everybody still has Commodore computers," he complained. "It's not for you to explain how they (IT) can't do things. It's for them to explain how they're going to get the thing fixed so people can watch this stuff. I don't need the google-dee-doc about the whole Bill Gates discussion. Fix the thing so somebody can go on a computer and watch it. No more excuses."
Northampton County's IT department is outsourced to Vision Technologies, a Maryland-based company. It has a contract that could cost taxpayers up to $33 million over the next 13 years.
Northampton County's YouTube channel is located here.
Good for him. That's what we elect these people to do. Make things work!
ReplyDeleteThere's no need to outsource this and $33 million indicates someone has a friend somewhere. Any video from any device can be converted to a youtube video in about 30 seconds. They've recently improved the process and it really is just that fast. This job could be accomplished by an 8-year old. Seriously, an 8-year old in 30 seconds. Old bureaucrats are very expensive and inefficient. Putting videos on YouTube ain't. And they wonder why people hate them as they're blowing our hard earned money because they're old and stupid and lazy and likely corrupt, given the padding in that IT contract.
ReplyDelete"There's no need to outsource this and $33 million indicates someone has a friend somewhere."
ReplyDeleteWhen NorCo first began using an IT department, it outsourced it because no one locally could handle it. Now might be the time to consider bringing it in house. Council member Tom Giovanni chairs the IT Committee, and perhaps he can weigh in on this topic. He has expertise on this topic. I will ask him.
seems a bit pricey for the, and I'm spitballin' here, maybe 20 viewers? did the public demand this?
ReplyDeleteAnyone adding this up? 10 million a year for streaming , $300,000 plus for new poll books, 2.8 million for the machines.,, ...sounds like getting ready for taxes to go up.
ReplyDeleteThank you Mr.heckman
ReplyDeleteIm confused. Is the entire IT department outsourced or just the work for council videos? I hope for $33M the whole department that serves all county systems is included.
ReplyDeleteThe entire IT is outsourced.
ReplyDeleteDo the DNC Super Delegates know about this Heckman fella? Maybe we can save this thing after all.
ReplyDeleteSome of your readers appear to be drunk on something - perhaps the thought that Trump will be reelected. This post has nothing to do with Sam Murray or West Easton's council. On the subject, this is great news. One advantage of the status quo was that the videos were extremely well organized - just a bitch to actually view.
ReplyDeleteHeckman has too much common sense to be a democrat.
ReplyDeleteThe Commodore computer quip still makes me laugh. Great wit! Does anyone under 30 get the reference? priceless.
ReplyDelete