Vote Delayed on City Web Site Contract

The city council has postponed today's scheduled vote on awarding a contract to create the new city web site.

Complaints sprung up online this week over the $700,000 cost of the project and the fact that Cignex, the company in line to receive the work, was based in California.

The Austin Business Journal quoted city manager Marc Ott as saying the postponement, expected to last a month, would allow time for the city’s chief communications director Doug Matthews and chief information officer Gail Roper to fully review options for the project.

Although characterized in news reports as a web site redesign, the project's Request for Proposal (RFP) that was sent to prospective firms shows that it's closer to a full-fledged IT services engagement, calling for the "redesign and re-architecture of the COA Web site, including the implementation of the Zope/Plone Content Management System (CMS)."

The Burnt Orange Report wrote that the list of Central Texas companies that received notifications about the redesign job is more than 33 pages long and included Milkshake Media, Olive Design, Tocquigny, T3, McGarrah Jessee, Frog Design, Headspring and Sicola Martin. None of those companies submitted a bid.

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By Jeff Beckham in News on March 26, 2009 2:30 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

No Offshoring

@chip - so you think it is ok for a company to bid low and outsource the work to India? Cignex does all of its work from India.

They can't even support their own site http://www.plonelive.com/ and how can one expect them to support govt sites?

Going out on lunches and giving gifts can does not mean we have to push jobs offshore.

Is there a place where Cignex response is made public? I'd like to see if it says that there will be no offshoring.

Chip Rosenthal

Loudmouth, I've got some information that addresses a couple of the points you raised.

First, there has been a very public process that's been going on for over a year:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/austingo/process.htm

Even if you aren't following it in the mainstream media or city news, it's been on the interwebs--even here on Austinist:

http://austinist.com/2008/01/23/city_to_host_to.php

The City had a very open, very public requirements gathering process, and thousands of people participated. I think the followup has been lacking, but you absolutely cannot fault them on public outreach.

As far as the benefit of keeping contracts local, absolutely! That's why the bid evaluation included a bonus for local support. It's just that the Cignex proposal was rated stronger on every other evaluation category (not just price), thus the recommendation to award it to them.

It's also worth noting that Cignex will be using local subcontractors (both Austin and Houston) for major portions of the work, so that's good for the local economy.

This whole "Keep Austin Local" argument frustrates me greatly ... not because I think the web site project is wonderful and beautiful, but because it isn't. This is a troubled project in the 18th month of its 12 month projected schedule. The two City departments that manage it have undergone serious management upheaval. I have concerns about their efforts to get it on track, and bigger concerns about addressing the open government needs of the community. This little tempest is diverting attention from the areas that matter onto stupid shit.

causal observer

Maybe the local proposal simply wasn't as strong. That could also happen.

LoudMouth

Are you saying that people should have known beforehand that they would go with the California company? I want large contracts to stay local, even if we have to pay a little more for them. That's why some people shop at Waterloo and not Wal-Mart, they keep their purchases local even if they pay more and they expect the city to do the same. Why would you have a problem if people want to hold the city to those standards of keeping large contracts local to benefit the local economy?

mdahmus

The Telecommunications commission covered this for months and months and months. I knew about the ongoing work, and I'm not on the damn thing. Two dozen Austin companies or so were explicitly asked to submit proposals.

LoudMouth

Isn't that what people are doing and the city is doing? People were paying attention. There weren't any citizen input meetings before this item came up but as soon as people got wind about it they expressed their concerns to the council. What are you complaining about, that people did what you want them to do?

LoudMouth

Isn't that what people are doing and the city is doing? People were paying attention. There weren't any citizen input meetings before this item came up but as soon as people got wind about it they expressed their concerns to the council. What are you complaining about, that people did what you want them to do?

tim

This just goes back to our city council listening a bit too much to a few whiny constituents. The squeaky wheel is getting WAY too much grease in Austin lately. If you want to be involved in the way the city government is run you have to pay attention. You have to look at the agendas and go to meetings. We can't wait on every decision until everyone in Austin has been notified and then go back and ask them after the decision is made to make sure they're happy with it.

City Council - find out what your constituents want. Do it and stand behind your actions.

causal observer

1) I'm really looking forward to an improvement to the COA's website. The design as it is right now is just terrible.

2) Those Austin companies should have submitted bids. Who is doing all this complaining? If there were only two usable proposals submitted, and only one of them was from an Austin company, I don't understand all the commotion.