City goes with Wtechlink

By Terry Murry on Thursday, November 3rd, 2022 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories

PENDLETON – The Pendleton City Council has approved contracting with Wtechlink of Pendleton to be the city’s internet service provider. It’s former provider, InterMountain Education Service District, is stepping away from providing its services to some of its customers to allow it to concentrate more on serving its member school districts.

“This has been going on for probably a little less than a year,” City Manager Robb Corbett said of the city’s learning about IMESD. “As it appears to me, a lot of it has to do with work force issues. We’re all struggling with work force issues and being able to hire the right people and keep up with the workloads. The city’s dealt with that in a lot of different areas and so has ESD. As we worked with them through those issues, it became apparent that probably the best path forward for us was to transition to transfer over to this partnership.”

The partnership Corbett refers to is with the cities of Hermiston and Umatilla to provide support services. They would provide desktop service, maintenance, and protection against cyber crimes.

“The contract with Hermiston/Umatilla has not been resolved, so that’s still in process,” Corbett said. “That will come back to us at the next meeting.”