The city of Cape Coral went live with its new permitting and licensing software system last week, with some glitches and issues reported.

On Wednesday, Vince Cautero, business services director, gave the Cape Coral City Council an update on how things were going with the new system.

City Manager Rob Hernandez said he understood that the glitches caused a lot of frustration with the city’s customers, but said it wasn’t unexpected.

“We communicated extensively with the building industry to let them know we were going live with it and to anticipate problems we didn’t know were going to be evident,” Hernandez said. “The industry has been patient with us and working with us and identifying issues their members were finding.”

Cautero said among the glitches in the EnerGov system were speed issues and the import of documents into the system, since everyone was calling for inspections.

It took several days to rectify the problems.

For now, there is going to be window service, but Cautero said he needs to look at what other cities have done with their software and with other software to determine when the permitting process will go electronic only.

“I’ve asked my staff to put in a digital conversion plan, the steps we need to make to go completely electronic,” Cautero said. “It’s going to take an educated public which they will be over time, especially contractors, and we have to provide help at the front counter. That’s good customer service.”

Cautero said as more people use the system, the lesser the need will be for counter people and the smoother the process will operate.

Michelle Hoffman, IT director, said the city is trying to add memory and other things to make the system work faster. She said the customer side of things are going well; it’s on their side regarding speed processing.

Councilmember Robert Welsh said he found the system much easier to use once he got the hang of it.

Councilmember Gloria Tate also gave EnerGov high marks.

“I tried it and I had no problem. I like it because it also gives you code violations and everything in that one person’s address,” Tate said, though she expressed concerns over fly-by-night companies that don’t know the rules, which can create all sorts of problems.

In other business:

Council approved the new redistricting maps for the city by a 7-1 vote

Councilmember Tom Hayden dissented, saying there wasn’t any real need to change the districts as was proposed.

“Any time we vote on something like that, it has to have a lot of impact and the population numbers have stayed pretty much the same,” Hayden said. “Districts just give people a reference point if you need to contact a councilmember. I didn’t see value in changing the districts the way we did.”

Hayden’s District 3 and Robert Welsh’s District 5 saw the greatest changes, with Hayden’s district becoming more commercial and District 5 more residential, with the Sandoval community now consolidated into a single district.

* Council changed the time it holds its workshop, or Committee of the Whole, meetings from 3 p.m. to 9 a.m. on scheduled Wednesdays The time change will take effect starting with the March 9 workshop.

* Council voted to hold a joint meeting with the city’s Youth Council on Wednesday, March 30, at 4:30 p.m. in council chambers.

* One agenda item that posed an issue was a vote regarding terminations for non-bargaining unit employees before their probation period expires.

Richard Jones, president of IUPAT Local 2301, spoke at the public hearing, saying bargaining unit employees need to be included in the ordinance.

“While we agree with the intentions of the city manager, we believe the bargaining members need to be included as well,” Jones said.

Mayor John Gunter agreed that all employees should be seen as equal and originally stated he would not support the ordinance, but would support one that includes all employees.

City Attorney Dolores Menendez said the ordinance could not be changed beyond the scope of the non-bargaining employees, but another ordinance could be drawn up to include bargaining members.

When the mayor got assurance the bargaining employees would be taken care of in that matter in their contract, he was satisfied and the ordinance passed unanimously.