Council to Revisit City's Website

San Angelo's City Council postponed a $90,000 request to update the City's website.  Council approved $40,000 for a new website six months ago.  The meeting minutes from May 1, 2012 stated:

APPROVAL OF A RECOMMENDATION FROM THE EVALUATION TEAM TO AWARD RFP: PI-01-11/WEBSITE DESIGN CONTRACT TO VISION INTERNET, IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $40,000.00 FOR DESIGN OF A NEW, CUSTOM WEBSITE FOR THE CITY OF SAN ANGELO, AND AUTHORIZATION FOR THE CITY MANAGER TO NEGOTIATE AND EXECUTE A CONTRACT WITH THE RECOMMENDED VENDOR

Requested by Councilmember Morrison and responding to questions from Citizen Jim Turner, Multimedia Coordinator Brian Groves presented background information regarding the capability of the various functions the web host would build and design; the cost, related expenditures for the project, and the timeframe to complete the project; and the length of the contract.

General discussion was held on the capability of the web host, continuous technology changes, open source solutions, user friendly features, back office capability, and possibly considering Code for America as an open source framework provider.

Public comments were made by Citizen Jim Turner and Ann Joseph.

Motion, to accept, as presented, was made by Councilmember Adams and seconded by Councilmember Alexander.  Councilmember Morrison expressed his concern on the specifics of the proposal and the unknown facts to move forward with the website design.

A vote was taken on the motion on the floor. AYE: Alexander, Adams, Hirschfeld, and Farmer. NAY: New and Morrison. Motion carried 4-2.

Anthony Wilson was not in the Public Information Officer role when council addressed this subject..  Ty Meighan was.  However, Anthony is the one explaining the need for $90,000 today.  I look forward to his presentation.

Update 11-25-12:  ConchoInfo, the Jim Turner mentioned in the minutes above, ran a piece on the recent council discussion regarding the city's new website.  It's worth the read.

Update 12-8-12:  The Public Information Office will apply for funding for a server through an Emergency Preparedness grant.   This may or may not impact the amount of funds requested for the website, given servers can perform multiple functions.