Question one: the punch cards were eventually transferred to tape, and later disks. The system was a 1401 assembler port of a hard-wired IBM 407 accounting machine app. In turn the 1401 emulator was run under VM370 as a virtual machine.
Actually, the operators loved it, because each one could have his "own" 1401 with card reader, printer, punch, and virtual console. The original app dated from the mid-1950s.
In truth, the City-County building was condemned as unsafe from the day it opened in 1949. It was built by the mayor's brother. It took a year of reinforcement before anybody was allowed above the first floor. With 18 million punch cards on the 11th floor, you could feel the floor wobble whenever someone walked by. Our office was on the opposite side of the building, and I never went near the assessor's office again. It was only by some miracle that half the building didn't collapse. Elimination of the punch cards saved it.
Second question: the forms were printed on a IBM 1403N1 chain printer. It was probably the fastest, neatest, and noisiest mechanical printer ever made. This was in pre-laser days.
I could always hear the high-speed printer chattering in the background. If it stopped for more than a minute it usually meant that the system had crashed (again). Also remember working on a VM370 machine, with my virtual card reader and virtual card punch. You would send someone a message by 'punching' it out to his account, and receive one by activating your 'reader'.