Multiple Swampscott board and committee meetings have been changed to in-person-only formats, as the town grapples with a “service disruption” for almost a week.

The town announced a “network disruption” on August 19, and it continues to impact Town Hall and other municipal facilities, including the Senior Center. The Select Board meeting scheduled for Tuesday, August 18, was canceled because of technical difficulties, as was the Water and Sewer Infrastructure Advisory Committee meeting on Wednesday. Staff also confirmed that they cannot access all of their town documents due to the issue.

“We recently experienced a network disruption that is impacting certain aspects of our operations,” Town Administrator Nick Connors told the Swampscott Tides. “In response, we immediately took steps to secure our network. Our IT team is working diligently with third-party specialists to investigate the full nature and scope of the incident and securely restore files and systems as expeditiously as possible.”

Connors is currently out of the office and did not respond to additional questions about the town’s information technology contracts.

Shannon O’Leary, the executive assistant to the town administrator and Select Board, confirmed that Swampscott works with HiQ Computers, but said she deferred to Connors’ comments on questions about the contract and the broader issue. Swampscott, like other towns, uses CivicPlus as its website vendor. 

HiQ provides IT infrastructure design, implementation and maintenance services to local governments, state agencies, businesses and educational institutions. The Medford-based company was founded in 1986.

The company did not immediately have a media contact available, and no one returned the call or email from the Swampscott Tides.

The Swampscott Tides was told that the town’s HiQ representative, WooChan Park, is typically in town on Wednesdays. Park did not return a call from the Swampscott Tides.

As of Monday, it appeared that Wi-Fi at Town Hall had been restored for cellphone users.

The Select Board discussed in May joining the North Shore IT Collaborative, which is a regional partnership between Danvers, Essex, Hamilton, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Marblehead, Middleton, Topsfield and Wenham. The goal was to move away from a “break-fix” model to a forward-looking system that includes planning, cybersecurity improvements and better vendor pricing. 

Select Board Chair Katie Phelan called it a “unicorn situation” that would reduce costs and improve services. Select Board Member Wayne Spritz noted that the collaborative could address issues with the town’s website, like broken links and overall functionality. 

Connors had said the town was working through an agreement process and that he had anticipated onboarding at the start of the new fiscal year, which began July 1. Ipswich is also considering joining the North Shore IT Collaborative.

At a meeting in Essex on July 13, Town Administrator Brendhan Zubricki noted that the collaborative would review its current capacity “without having to hire additional staff.” 

Meanwhile, as issues persist in Swampscott, Lt. Brendan Reen told the Swampscott Tides that the Swampscott Police Department has “not had any involvement with investigating the technical issues with the town.” The Essex County District Attorney’s Office told the Swampscott Tides the office would “get involved if or when someone was criminally charged.” 

This is not the first technology-related issue involving town staff in 2026. In January, the Swampscott Tides received an email from Administrative Assistant to the Town Administrator Jody Watts. The email, sent from Watts’ swampscottma.gov address, said that Watts had “invited you to access a file.” When the Swampscott Tides responded that it could not open the link, HiQ representative WooChan Park emailed almost 200 people, suggesting “Jody’s account has been compromised.”

Separately, just a week before the town’s “network disruption,” the Swampscott Tides received a blank email from the Anchor Food Pantry with the subject line “Scanned file from The Anchor.” Since Managing Editor Monica Sager was away on vacation, an automated reply was sent, to which Anchor Food Pantry responded “do not open this!”

This is an ongoing story. The Swampscott Tides will continue to update readers as more information about the ‘network disruption’ becomes available.