HERMANN — Gasconade County government officials and their information technology (IT) provider are expected in the next couple weeks to begin mapping out a plan for bolstering the security of the county’s computer network.

AQM of Washington is the county’s IT service provider and has been working to untangle the knots in the network used by the various departments in the courthouse.

County Collector Shawn Schlottach has been spearheading the effort to have AQM conduct a needs assessment of the network and make recommendations for improving the network’s security against cyberattacks. The concern about beefing up the level of security was raised in recent months during a conference of Missouri’s county commissioners. A representative of the Missouri Department of Public Service advised county administrators to take steps to make their governments’ computer systems less susceptible to hackers.

Schlottach noted at Thursday morning’s session of the County Commission that the effort to modernize and increase the aging computer network will be a formidable task. “It’s going to be huge,” she said.

Northern District Associate Commissioner Jim Holland, R-Hermann, acknowledged the work to be done.

“We’ve got a hundred years’ worth of wires in here,” he said, referring to the lines that criss-cross the courthouse connecting the various offices to the world outside. The work to upgrade network security comes at the same time county officials are trying to rid its relatively new telephone system of bugs that have been causing problems since it was installed earlier this year.

In other matters taken up during last week’s sesson, it was noted that the elevator for the courthouse is scheduled to be delivered Wednesday, May 8. The various components of the elevator will be stored just inside the courthouse’s main entrance. That entrance will be closed for an undetermined amount of time until the elevator is placed in the shaft that has been constructed by Franklin County Construction. The work on the shaft is nearing completion, said Presiding Commissioner Tim Schulte, R-Hermann.

The delivery of the elevator and equipment won’t disrupt work at the courthouse; employees are off that day for Truman Day, marking the birth of the only president from Missouri, Harry S Truman.

There has been some discussion of construction of a temporary wall across the front of the courthouse lobby to contain the elevator and equipment.

Entry to the courthouse will again be made through the north-side door — normally reserved for courthouse employees — and possibly the east-side door that has been closed for the past several months to allow replacement of the porch and stone steps, part of the courthouse renovation effort.

Meanwhile, Dale Henderson, a resident along Blue House Road in southern Gasconade County, Thursday morning continued his push to have the gravel road receive a chip-and-seal coating. Increased traffic on the road that connects Gasconade and Franklin counties has made life along the road much more difficult, Henderson told the Commission.

“In the summer time, it’s basically white-out conditions,” he said, referring to the dust kicked up by the increased traffic. “We need to find a way to get this done,” he said.

Southern District Associate Commissioner Jerry Lairmore, R-Owensville, said almost all property owners in the area proposed for chip-and-seal have signed off on the project.

“There’s only one person there that we don’t have yet,” he said.

Henderson said the character of the road has changed significantly over the years as more and more motorists use Blue House to reach places such as Sullivan.

“It went bad in the ‘90s,” he told county administrators, prompting residents along the road to make some changes in their daily routines. “You don’t dare hang out clothes,” he said, referring to the amount of dust coming from the road.

Even if the county is successful in obtaining all property owners’ agreement soon, it could be a couple years until the road receives a chip-and-seal coat. The county normally schedules chip-and-seal coatings for parts of two or three roads each year — depending on the amount of money available.

Lairmore noted that Bem Church Road is next scheduled to receive a coating, but that it’s important to keep pushing to get Blue House Road on the schedule.

“We’ve got to get it on the list,” the associate commissioner said.

Henderson is taking the wait in stride. “I’ll be very patient, but I won’t go away,” he said.

Lairmore said there are stretches of other gravel roads that could be placed on the list for chip-and-seal but progress has stalled because of a lone holdout property owner. The owners’ consent is needed in the event the county needs right-of-way space for maintaining the road.

Regarding county roads, the Commission Thursday morning was bracing for what could have been another round of weekend work repairing storm damage, prompted by a forecast of severe weather. However, Gasconade County was fortunate in being bypassed for the most part by the storm cell that moved through the region late Thursday and Friday morning.