City IT interns present incident-response plan and asset inventory improvements

The city introduced its first class of IT interns at the Nov. 4 council meeting. Interns summarized two short-term projects completed over a two-month rotation: an incident response plan (IRP) that includes an IRP master document, operational playbooks, quick-reference checklists and incident logs/after-action forms; and a comprehensive asset inventory effort that verified physical IT assets across city locations and migrated standardized asset data into the Freshservice configuration management database.

Interns said the IRP defines roles, communication policies and escalation procedures; the playbooks and checklists were uploaded to the city's internal knowledge platform for easy access. The inventory work involved physical verification at city hall, public works, libraries and other facilities and included data reconciliation and schema cleanup prior to Freshservice import. Staff said the work strengthens the city's readiness for cybersecurity incidents and improves device onboarding/retirement procedures.

Next steps: The interns will remain on staff for another two weeks and will provide demos for city departments and elected officials. Council members thanked the interns and encouraged continued investment in documentation and institutionalization of the IRP and asset-tracking processes.