Thursday, January 6, 2000 Older Editions

Andover was A-OK on Y2K

Y2K came and left Andover this weekend leaving only the question, "Y the big fuss?"

Town Manager Buzz Stapczynski says the Andover government experienced no ill effects from the dreaded Y2K computer bug.

"We're here. We survived. Y2K came and went," he says. "It wasn't easy. We spent considerable money upgrading systems over the last few years."

But, as was the case in nearly every town and country, few problems arrived along with the new millennium.

"It worked. We didn't have any problems," says Stapczynski, of his Y2K team's efforts. "It was going to be that one embedded chip that was going to embarrass us. We haven't found it yet."

Stapczynski says the town was "prepared for the worst Friday," in case anything did go wrong.

Workers shut down Andover's computer systems Friday, and were back in Sunday, Jan. 2, to boot the systems back up and check for glitches.

Had there been a problem, the town had generators prepared to run some buildings and had designated Doherty Middle School as a shelter.

"We were in good shape, but thank God we didn't have to pull those plans together," says Stapczynski.

Not everybody was pleased with the smooth transition and lack of glitches in the rollover to 2000.

"I was planning to head down to my local ATM," said one local, who demanded not to be identified, "and see if my library card would work."

-- Neil Fater