2016 01 14 WS MinutesMINUTES OF THE REGULAR WORK SESSION OF THE
CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BAYTOWN
January 14, 2016
The City Council of the City of Baytown, Texas met in a Regular Work Session on Thursday,
January 14, 2016, at 5:30 P.M., in the Council Chamber of the Baytown City Hall, 2401 Market
Street, Baytown, Texas with the following in attendance:
Brandon Capetillo
Robert Hoskins
David McCartney
Chris Presley
Mercedes Renteria
Terry Sain
Rick Davis
Ignacio,Ramirez
Leticia Brysch
Keith Dougherty
Council Member
Council Member
Council Member
Council Member
Council Member
Mayor Pro Tern
City Manager
City Attorney
City Clerk
Sergeant at Arms
Mayor Pro Tern Sain convened the January 14, 2016, City Council Regular Work Session with a
quorum present at 5:31 P.M., all members were present with the exception of Mayor DonCarlos
who was absent, Council Member Renteria who arrived at 5 :35 P.M., and Council Member
McCartney who arrived at 6:05 P.M.
1. DISCUSSIONS
a. The City Council shall receive an overview of the Baytown Information Technology
Services Department (ITS) by Mr. Edward Tomjack, Director of ITS.
Mr. Edward Tomjack, Director of ITS, presented the overview of the Baytown Information
Technology Services Department (ITS). He allowed each ITS employee to introduce themselves
and their time of service with the City of Baytown. Mr. Tomjack stated that by the numbers the
ITS is responsible for 959 computers which includes desktops, tablets, laptops, and the MDT's
that are in the public safety vehicles; 88 virtual servers built on top of about 20 to 21 physical
servers; 54 business applications; 112 printers; 42 facilities that they provide service to; 769
phones which is about 500 desktops and about 200 cell phones; 178 public safety vehicles that
they provide service to for mobile radios and MDT's; large number of public safety radios
as the officers and fire have about two each which includes the hand held and the police vehicle;
and about 2,400 calls for work orders. Additionally, he stated that they are leasing with Xerox on
multi - functional devices to eliminate faxes and scanners to having one device that will do all the
work.
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January 14, 2016
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During further discussion, Mr. Tomjack stated that the technology improvements included the
traffic management system, the SCADA system, the website, adding WiFi, and Executime. He
stated that over the last 18 months the City put out mobile devices such as laptops and
tablets that have the same capabilities as sitting at a desk. He stated that every employee now
has a City account that includes access to all the software available. He stated that they started a
new initiative of providing public WiFi starting at Pirates Bay, the Council Chamber, the City
Hall receptionist area, the Community Center, and will extend to the Town Center next. Mr.
Tomjack stated that public access extends to the internet and Sungard give citizens the ability to
view information about the City, make payments, submit applications, submit requests, etc. He
stated that they are in the process of replacing all of the old gear that the Sunset is no longer
supporting and because of that lack of support is causing PD to not be in compliance
with CJIS. He stated that they are working on a temporary waiver and PD does regular reports to
the TDPS explaining the status of that situation. He stated out of the 42 buildings about ten (10)
of them have been updated so far. He stated that they are doing video improvements on the
storage and management side to support the body cameras which will bring in lots of data to
manage. He stated that currently there's not a good redaction solution to push the data out.
Council Member Renteria recommended providing the inspectors with modem technology to be
able to connect with the system at the office and cut down on the turnaround time for
permits. Council Member Presley stated that the eGov tab that allows contractors the ability to
review the status of their permit is down at times and further inquired as to why this happens
quite often. Mr. Tomjack stated that the old system had issued with eGov being down, but since
the new system he's not aware that this issue exists. Mr. Nick Woolery stated that staff is
currently going through a full review of permit processes for improvements.
Mr. Tomjack stated that the Computer -Aided Dispatch (CAD) system is to answer service calls
and get the right tool to the needed citizen as quickly as possible. He stated that currently the
City on the Versaterm System in which the City has been with a while. He stated that a 911
Advisory Committee as of January 1 st was formed with members consisting of Fire, PD, City
Manager Office, and ITS with the goal to do a comprehensive analysis from call to arrival and
see where improvements can be made. He stated that some analysis was done prior to January
1st but more on a technology view rather a complete analysis. Chief Dougherty stated that as
Chair of the 911 Advisory Committee many of the issues have already been resolved.
During further discussion, Mr. Tomjack stated that the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a
suite of applications designed to manage the back office functionality. He stated that according
to the analysis of the survey done by Microsoft/GFOA some time ago more than half of the
people were dissatisfied with the ERP system. He stated that the end users were not happy in the
way it functions, how it was adopted within the organization, and it didn't meet their
expectations. He further stated that many of the customers stated that the customizations
purchased didn't meet their expectations and that the functionality was an issue as the vendor
either oversold the product or made promises that they couldn't deliver. Additionally, he stated
that over 1/3 of the people stated that they have the product on a shelf and don't use it. He stated
that there was another survey done by KPMG for finance and they reviewed why companies
have problems with their ERP deployments with the issues including inadequate timelines for
implementation and adoption by the end users to say it was a successful activity; off the shelf
functionality in which was stressed that the end user needs to try and realign their procedures to
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January 14, 2016
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the way the software is written as opposed to having the vendor modify the software; and that the
organization didn't plan ahead for the change therefore, they didn't have the right staff assigned
to the transition team.
Mr. Tomjack stated that around the year 2003 or 2004, the City of Baytown moved to using
SunGard products (FinancePlus v4 and Community Plus v8) which were on the market at that
time and then around the year 2009, searched the market for a newer product. He stated that in
the year 2010, the City made a decision to change vendors and that transition of the new vendor
went on for four (4) years, but was never successful for various reasons therefore, in the
year 2014 a mutual agreement was made between the City and that vendor to dissolve their
contract. He further stated that the remaining funds from the dissolved agreement went
towards the products of FinancePlus v5 and Community Plus v9. He stated that the newer
products being used are less than a year in use and that the ITS department followed the
recommendations from the survey and minimized the customizations. He stated that
the decisions of how the software would be used were made by all of the various
departments. Additionally, he stated that software is constantly changing and for informational
purposes stated that effective January 01, 2016, SunGard doesn't exist as it was purchased by FIS
Global as much larger financial services company.
During further discussion, Council Member Capetillo inquired if there was a way to test the
products before implementing it to where it doesn't affect daily business and inquired of how
does the City's backup work. Mr. Tomjack stated that there is a test server setup for use for
any department to demo a project and it won't damage the live system. With regards to the back-
up, Mr. Levi Masterson stated that nightly backup is done to the ERP system with a total virtual
machine backup which is a point in time backup that recovers to the exact set at about 11:00
P.M. Mr. Masterson stated that the ITS department perform local backups regularly that
restores data and that all of the layers feed into an offsite storage system which is not a cloud
storage but rather relays information between the City facilities. Council Member Capetillo
inquired if there's a possible detection of hacking. In response to Council Member Capetillo's
inquiry regarding hacking, Mr. Masterson stated that they run the Sysco Network Security
products that provides information of what comes into the network and that they have a very
restrictive firewall which allows ITS to also see the products coming into the system to be able to
restrict if necessary.
During further discussion, Mr. Tomjack stated with regards to video management that there's a
gap in the redaction area with the recordings from the body cameras in which they don't a
solution for but also stated that this is a problem for all police /fire departments. Council Member
Capetillo inquired if redaction is necessary only if there's a public information request or
redacted then stored. In response to Council Member Capetillo's inquiry, Chief Dougherty stated
that they only redact when there's a public information request otherwise the data is stored for 90
days. Council Member Renteria inquired as to how many body cameras are stored currently in
use. In response to Council Member Renteria's inquiry Chief Dougherty stated that there's a
couple that are being used for demo purposes, but they don't have the redaction software to
release the information and there's a newer one that they are testing out for a better quality
picture. Council Member Renteria further inquired if there's a plan to use the purchased body
cameras despite the storing issue. Mr. Tomjack stated that the cameras will be used, they just
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January 14, 2016
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have to fill the gap for the personnel who will have to manually watch the recordings and do
manual redaction or until a software comes along. Mr. Tomjack further stated that they are
working on video arraignment to allow the Judge to actually conduct court with the defendant
still being in a jail. He stated that the video is partially in place and should be complete within a
few weeks. He stated that electronic citations will be expanded to about 50 vehicles and
moving away from the hand held to MDT connected devices. He stated that they will be working
on the 911 Center and replacing the infrastructure with new equipment at the fire stations that are
on analog lines so that they will be able to put city desktop phones in all of them. He stated that
Comcast has new services that they are trying to get the City to purchase with one being a
pilot at Fire Station 4 and therefore has been beneficial to the performance of that station. He
further stated that the radio tower which is the Beach City Tower with Chambers County
whereas the City agreed to pay a portion of, Chambers County agreed to erect the tower, and
Harris County agreed to purchase all of the equipment for will ultimately be a simulcast with the
current Wade Road Tower which will solve the in building coverage for fire in that area.
Mayor Pro Tem Sain inquired if more personnel was needed for the ITS department. Mr.
Tomjack stated that he's comfortable with the current twelve (12) staff based on the current work
load assigned to date.
Council Member Renteria asked what it would take to help with the redaction of the body
camera issues and requested that the redaction issue be on each agenda for discussion.
City Manager Davis stated that there will be opportunities coming up to discuss the business plan
for development initiatives for the coming year which will include this issue as well as others.
2. ADJOURN
With there being no further business to discuss, Mayor Pro Tem Sain adjourned the January 14,
2016, City Council Regular Work Session at 6:11 P.M.
Leticia Brysch, City
City of Baytown
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