Mondovi Council opts to upgrade city’s network security

by Beth Kraft

City leaders were asked at the Mondovi City Council’s April 28 meeting to consider the need for cyber liability insurance coverage to provide legal protection for the city in the event that personal information is stolen via a web-based attack. At the Council’s first regular meeting of the month on Tuesday, May 12, the group agreed instead to move forward with purchasing new technology to upgrade firewalls at city hall and at the police station.

Council members agreed that strengthening the city’s systems that store personal data in police case files and employee data at city hall was a more practical and cost-effective solution to protect against hackers. The city was quoted at about $1,400 for one year of cyber liability insurance while the $2,560 cost of the firewall upgrades covers three years. 

Three other communities that work with Mondovi’s insurance agent—Altoona, Baldwin and Barron—carry cyber liability insurance, reported city administrator Dan Lauersdorf in response to a question posed by Council members at the previous meeting.

Lauersdorf noted that the firewall upgrades would be a cyber security improvement for the city, but nothing is completely hacker-proof. The big question, city leaders agreed, is how great the threat of hackers stealing personal data is in Mondovi to justify spending taxpayers’ money to protect the city in some way.

“The more of this type of stuff we do, the less real-life stuff we’re able to [pay for],” Lauersdorf reminded the Council.

Going with the cyber liability insurance would not only be more costly, but it would also have to be proven through computer forensics that any hijacked data was stolen from city servers in order for the insurance to protect them legally, Lauersdorf pointed out. He recommended strengthening the city’s network security now and reassessing the city’s need for cyber liability insurance at a later date, a course of action the Council agreed was logical.

Councilwoman Lynn Smith saw the firewall upgrades as useful in the city’s day-to-day operations while the cyber liability insurance is more of a “what if” solution.

Mondovi Police Chief Scott Smith agreed there are many computer records containing personal data stored at the MPD that the city should take care to protect.

Work done by Chief Smith on the city’s burn ordinance, which concerns fire rings and fire pits in the city, was also discussed that night.

Smith directed the Council’s attention to a section of the current ordinance that governs how close fire pits can be to structures and combustible materials as well as acceptable flame height. 

After consulting with Mondovi Fire Chief Steve Anderson, Smith said a portion of the ordinance that previously allowed enclosed fire pits to be placed close to structures, such as on backyard decks, will be deleted due to safety concerns with the heat radiated by them.

No burning, with the exception of grills, will be allowed within 15 feet of structures and combustible materials, the proposed ordinance states. Flame height will also be limited to one foot above the fire ring or fire pit, again, due to safety concerns, although Smith acknowledged that officers will use their discretion if they need to assess flame height.

A section will also be added to the ordinance to allow the fire chief or police chief to extinguish any fire they determine is dangerous for any reason.

City leaders agreed the proposed changes for the ordinance will give the police department and city residents clearer guidelines to follow regarding backyard bonfires.

Smith’s suggestions will now be sent to the city attorney to create the final draft reflecting changes to the burn ordinance for final approval by the Council at a future meeting.

Also brought up for discussion that evening was parking during the Buffalo County Fair, particularly on Harrison Street.

Councilman Gerald Rud said he had been thinking about parking near the fairgrounds since the Council approved a request by a Fair Board rep last month to allow parking on sections of Harrison to be blocked off at times during the fair in order for semis to safely access the tractor pull track area. Rud wondered if it would be better to close off one whole side of Harrison to allow for better traffic flow for safety reasons. He also wondered if switching the softball tournament that occurs the weekend of the fair to another date would be possible to free up parking.

Mondovi Mayor Treig Pronschinske said it wouldn’t be fair to deter groups from holding the softball tournament, but he offered to bring general safety concerns up with the Fair Board to see what could be done.

Pronschinske noted it’s great to see the fair growing every year, but all parties involved need to keep pace with the increased number of fairgoers and make any changes that are necessary to ensure traffic and pedestrian safety. It might be a good idea for the Fair Board and Mondovi emergency response personnel to get together to look at potential safety issues that can come up during the fair and how to solve them, he said.

The Council also discussed a few other areas of concern that evening, including a potential water/sewer rate increase this year and adopting the GASB 34 accounting standards.

Councilwoman Smith pointed out that historically the city has conducted a rate increase about every other year to keep the water and sewer utilities from falling into the red. Lauersdorf agreed it might be time to look at a standard three percent increase and said he would look at bringing a proposal to the Council soon.

Smith also noted that the city is not yet following GASB 34 standards, a fact that has been brought up by auditors every year for many years. She wondered why the city was not utilizing these now-common accounting practices to guard against mismanagement of city funds, reminding the Council that auditors said last month that Mondovi is one of only three communities not observing GASB 34 out of the 30 or so communities they work with.

Lauersdorf said the city does follow necessary accounting standards, just not GASB 34. He explained that GASB 34 would provide a bond rating for the city, but the city doesn’t really sell bond issues and doesn’t need a bond rating in order to borrow funds. For this reason, he said converting to GASB 34 was not viewed as cost-effective in the past, but he agreed to obtain a cost estimate from auditors when he discusses the utility rate increase proposal with them.

In other business that night, the Council approved the following:

• operator licenses for Irene H. O’Connell (Local Inn); Kristine A. Johnston

• temporary Class “B” picnic license for White Pig co-ed softball team for tournament May 29-31; Mondovi Softball Association (Joshua Dregney) for May 18-28