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City OKs $24,000 engineering contract to upgrade core network, increase cybersecurity segmentation
Summary
Council authorized the city manager to sign a contract for network engineering support to redesign core routing and install redundant firewalls for city hall and police, a $24,000 contract with White Oak plus an approved contingency; IT director said work will reduce single‑point failures and improve police network segmentation.
The council authorized a contract May 5 for IT network engineering to address aging infrastructure and cybersecurity concerns. The city approved an engineering services agreement with White Oak (contract value shown in packet as $24,000) and a contingency amount the city manager may approve to cover change orders.
IT Director Brandon Sims said the city’s current network used a “spoke‑and‑hub” topology with a single core device at city hall. That arrangement produced a single point of failure, Sims said; the White Oak work will design a redundant core routing configuration, install new Fortinet firewalls and create logical segmentation for critical systems — including a tighter, logically isolated police network.
Sims explained the approach will allow staged parallel deployment to avoid outages and that the team has procured core devices. The motion approved $24,000 for the design and implementation engineering, and staff noted an allowance of up to approximately $5,000 for contract change orders; council approved the contract with authority for the city manager to execute.
Sims said the expected implementation timeframe will be several months and that the vendor will configure equipment once the design is finalized. Councilors emphasized the importance of documented continuity and asked whether staff maintain offsite credentials and documentation; the director said system administrators retain configuration records and local access while the new design will add redundancy and clearer segmentation.
Council approved the contract 5–0 and directed staff to proceed and report progress to the council.
