Commissioners approve software upgrade for building department
Feb. 5—JEFFERSON — The Ashtabula County Board of Commissioners approved a service agreement between the county building department and Citizenserve Community Development Software at a Tuesday meeting.
At a Jan. 22 meeting, County Building Inspector Thomas Congdon and Office Manager Cari Ellsworth said the new software would allow the department to have customer service talk with customers and help the county work with municipalities.
The building department had been using Cityforce Software, to that point.
During a work session before the meeting, the commissioners talked with Ashtabula County Prosecutor's Office about a few issues, including a bidding complaint.
The county previously advertised for a food truck for the Lodge at Geneva-on-the-Lake.
The commissioners rescinded the original bid for the food truck at a meeting last week, after the company found they would not be able to fulfill it. They then awarded the bid to another company.
Ashtabula County Administrator Janet Discher said the first bidder claimed in an email they were not treated fairly.
"The original people that we awarded the bid to were the only ones that submitted the 2025 year, and that's what we asked them to bid," she said.
Discher said the decision to rescind the bid came after the original bidder said they could not provide a 2025 model.
Ducro said he thought the commissioners do not want to be the ones to respond to the email.
"I just want to make sure we get a proper response to him from our legal," he said.
Ducro said he assumed a response would be devised by Discher and the prosecutor's office.
Ducro also spoke at the meeting about a venue in the county which has not been paying its lodge taxes.
"This has been an ongoing thing for a long time," he said.
The unpaid taxes have gone back around six months, Ducro said.
Assistant Prosecutor Christine Davis said she will check with the staff working on it to see what the next steps are.
Davis said the commissioners should reach out if they have any pressing issues in the future.
The commissioners approved union agreements between the Ashtabula County Sheriff's Department and the Fraternal Order of Police.
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