City Hall is set to shut down most of the city’s non-emergency phone and electronic communications over President’s Day weekend.

Beginning Friday, Feb. 13, the City of Kirkland will be migrating its computer servers and phone equipment to the City of Bellevue offices. That work will temporarily disrupt some of the city’s Web sites and all non-emergency voicemail and email services through Monday, Feb. 16. The move was necessitated by the city’s lack of well-ventilated space for the computer hardware and lack of funds to renovate the space, said city CIO Brenda Cooper. So moving the equipment to Bellevue in leased offices was the cheapest way to go.

“We are as dependent on our IT infrastructure to do day-to-day work as we are on the roads,” she said. “A complete failure of the current server room could cost the city hundreds of thousands of real dollars.”

The servers will be maintained there for the foreseeable future. In the past couple of years, one of three air conditioners that cooled down the city’s servers failed, causing the room to overheat and potentially damaging the equipment. Estimates to repair or renovate the computer server room ran between $645,000 for a quick fix to $2.3 million to extend the city’s tech facility needs 10 years.

“We have fought off the heat death of servers by standing and holding fans pointed at them,” she said.

During the move, several functions on the city’s Web site may be affected, including registering online for building permits or for programs. Emergency dispatch services will remain operational and customers can pay utility bills online.

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