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Bay City introduces new IT manager, pushes cybersecurity, network segmentation
Summary
City staff introduced IT manager Chris Boudreaux and outlined a multi‑year plan of cybersecurity, domain and server upgrades, network segmentation and policy work aimed at reducing risk and centralizing IT operations.
Chris Boudreaux, the city’s new IT manager, told the Bay City City Council on Sept. 23 that he has prioritized cybersecurity, policy creation and infrastructure consolidation since starting in June. Boudreaux introduced staff including IT specialist Christina Lopez and listed completed and planned work ranging from an incident response plan to a Windows 11 rollout and a planned move from .org to .gov domains.
Boudreaux said the city completed an incident response plan and several control improvements identified in a 2022 gap assessment, including firewall fixes, centralized backups and deployment of a Barracuda email defense gateway to reduce spam and phishing. He said daily checks and preventative maintenance processes are now in place. “I did establish the incident response plan first,” he said, adding the document is currently with the city manager and city secretary for rollout.
Boudreaux described an inventory of current and planned projects: data‑retention policy work, consolidated password management and single sign‑on; rehosting and recabling equipment at the wastewater treatment plant; upgrades for servers to 2025 versions; a Teams re‑rollout; centralized network monitoring and a SIEM (security information and event management) capability; and domain migration from .org to .gov, which he said had been encouraged by the state. He said migration to .gov will include redirects so existing .org addresses continue to work.
On network architecture, Boudreaux said the city will segment its flat network by physical location — separating parks, city hall and police department networks — and isolate guest wireless to prevent cross‑traffic. He called segmentation “probably the hardest” upcoming change because of the potential for user impact during implementation, but added the work is intended to reduce troubleshooting time and security exposure.
Council members responded positively. Councilman Flores thanked staff for the work and Council praised Christina Lopez for her prior efforts maintaining systems. Boudreaux said many of the projects are being implemented with existing equipment and staff augmentation rather than new budget requests.
The presentation included an inventory of near‑term tasks Boudreaux said he hopes to accomplish within a year while pacing change to avoid staff “change fatigue.” He invited council and staff to contact the IT office for support and said he will coordinate tabletop exercises for cyber incident response with other city staff.
The council raised no formal objections and did not take any vote linked directly to the presentation.
