City Council adopts identity theft policy

By DEB WUETHRICH

 Tecumseh City Council passed a resolution Monday night to adopt the City’s Information Security Policy, an Incident Response Plan, and to designate City Manager Kevin Welch as the Information Security officer for the program. The items involve a series of procedures to protect against identify theft. Welch said the move was to comply with federal law to protect sensitive information the city might collect during the course of business.

Welch said the city doesn’t collect sensitive information such as social security numbers; however, it still is required to approve the policies.

“The area most touched for us is our utilities department,” he said. Residents can pay water bills with a credit card, but Welch said that is handled by a third party. “It’s very unlikely we’d have a problem with this but we still have to adopt the Identity Theft Prevention policy,” he said.

The council members also adopted a resolution to accept the trade of a 20-year-old lagoon pump the city has never used for a reduction of $2,000 off the price of hauling sludge at the wastewater plant by Merrell Brothers when the company made an offer for the pump.

In other business:

• Welch called for a study session on November 17 to review the city’s budget and finances, future projects and road projects. The session will take place prior to the council’s regular meeting.
• Council member Dick Johnson questioned whether something might be done to inform the state that the current crossing signals on the city’s main corners are confusing pedestrians. Welch said he did place a call to MDOT to express concerns just after the lights went up, and said he could make another call if the council wished for him to do that.
“We’ll inform residents through our next newsletter,” Welch said of the need to push the button before crossing Chicago Boulevard in order to activate the crossing signals. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to us either, but we also don’t control it.”