Sunday, May 5, 2024
Last May, local officials and members of the community turned out for a ribbon cutting and tour of the new, 30,000-square-feet Granbury Police Department building located on 40 acres at 2050 NE Loop 567.
IT issues prevented the police department from moving into its new quarters at that time, but Police Chief Mitch Galvan felt hopeful that the move would take place within days or weeks.
Fast forward to September, and the expansive, state-of-the-art building still sits empty while the police department’s 54 staffers remain jammed into a corner of Granbury City Hall.
That will soon change, though.
Galvan said Thursday that he expects the move to finally occur this month, maybe even within a few days.
The chief said that workers were scheduled to begin “testing the network and all the access control modules.”
If those tests go well, the RMS system will be checked, he stated. An RMS system is an agency-wide system that provides for storage, retrieval, retention, manipulation, archiving and viewing of information, records, documents, or files pertaining to law enforcement operations.
Galvan said that a lot depends on the completion of access control — the police department being able to control doors, locks and security cameras.
He stated that the city’s recent decision to switch to a new managed service provider for IT needs was not due to the delay involving the new police station.
“That’s not even factoring into it at this point,” Galvan said. “We’ve had in-house personnel that have been working to get us to where we are right now.”
He said that manufacturing and shipping issues were part of the delay.
Galvan said that everyone in his department has remained upbeat and excited.
“We know the end’s coming,” he said of the long wait. “We’re being patient and our spirits are high.”
IT CHALLENGES
Chris Collins, an officer with the Granbury Police Department, is now also the city’s IT director. He has been actively involved in addressing technology issues at the new police station.
At its regular meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 6, the City Council voted unanimously in accordance with Collins’ recommendation to switch to a new managed service provider, Buchanan Technologies.
Collins said that in mid-June the city notified its current MSP, McLane Intelligent Solutions, that it would be terminating the contract due to the company “underperforming” and not having “proper staffing or backing,” particularly as it pertained to police department computers and standards for criminal justice information.
The switch will save the city money.
The City Council approved an amount not to exceed $255,000. The amount that had been budgeted for the upcoming fiscal year for McLane was $345,094.
City Manager Chris Coffman noted that the city’s IT needs will be handled in a hybrid fashion, with Buchanan serving in a “big brother” role assisting on-site city employees.
