VPN outages and Wi‑Fi problems leave county functions offline; commissioners to press contracted vendor Century for fixes

County staff described multiple recent outages that prevented remote access to county systems and scanners, with the police department, senior center and other offices unable to use VPN‑dependent services.

Sam Nasser and Brandon (county IT support) said changes to credentials and router configuration on the county’s SonicWall security appliance removed VPN access for several departmental users and that Century, the county’s contracted IT vendor, has been slow to resolve the tickets. One staff member said he had to ‘‘walk’’ Century’s technician through basic checks and could not get the issue fully remediated over the phone.

Staff recommended establishing a county‑issued support login or runbook so an on‑site person can perform immediate troubleshooting and then revoke the credential when the issue is resolved. Commissioners raised liability and contractual questions and asked county administration to contact Century for an immediate remediation plan and to report back.

Commissioners also discussed SonicWall licensing line items on a recently received invoice and the configuration of in‑building Wi‑Fi access points; IT staff suggested budget‑level improvements (additional access points and network reconfiguration) to allow staff to run CIC training and other work more reliably.

The commission asked staff to engage Century and to return with a proposal for a county‑controlled support credential and a short remedial plan to restore VPN and Wi‑Fi reliability.