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<br />2026-03-31 MINUTES 1 <br /> <br />KITTITAS COUNTY <br />IT STUDY SESSION MINUTES <br />BOCC CONFERENCE ROOM, 205 WEST 5TH ROOM 108 - ELLENSBURG <br />Special Meeting <br /> <br />TUESDAY 1:00 PM March 31, 2026 <br />Board members present: Commissioner Cory Wright, Commissioner Brett Wachsmith <br />Absent: Commissioner Laura Osiadacz <br />Others: IT Director Doug Fessler, Assistant IT Director Zane Kinney, Infrastructure Manager <br />Bill Davis, Administrative Assistant Grant Shimada <br />Call to order at 1:00 p.m. <br />Citizen Comments – There were no citizen comments. <br />IT Department’s Request for Board Direction of GIS Resources <br />IT Director Doug Fessler and Assistant IT Director Zane Kinney both gave an overview of the <br />current GIS climate. Due to the growing needs for GIS support within multiple departments, IT <br />has put together a couple solutions: 1) Hire new staff with a broad set of experience ranging from <br />application troubleshooting to GIS support, 2) Train internal staff, 3) Use 3rd party consultants to <br />handle the County’s growing support needs, 4) Use a hybrid approach of internal training and 3rd <br />party consultants. Mr. Fessler and Mr. Kinney requested Board feedback on the presented <br />options and direction for next steps. The Board expressed their understanding that the growing <br />GIS need is a high priority affecting multiple departments and directed Mr. Fessler and Mr. <br />Kinney to continue researching into hiring new talent. <br />Public Website/Intranet – Discussion <br />Assistant IT Director Zane Kinney reported that Diagram Inc. is making steady progress on the <br />new public website and commended their work. Mr. Kinney will soon begin setting up training <br />and department data migration. Mr. Kinney commented that they might have a demo of the new <br />website ready by the next study session in April. <br />Mr. Kinney informed the Board of a cloud-hosted web-based agentic AI that can assist users <br />with their inquiries by pulling information from specific websites instead of searching the entire <br />internet. The Board expressed their support for this idea. Mr. Kinney informed the Board that <br />this will go on a budget amendment. <br />