South Tahoe working on creating functional website
By Kathryn Reed
With no discussion about why the cost of the new website for South Lake Tahoe has nearly doubled, the council OK’d the $38,047 expenditure on a 5-0 vote.
Even though awarding the contract to CivicPlus out of Kansas was on the consent agenda Sept. 14, Councilman Hal Cole pulled it to talk about website content. He wants to ensure people landing on the current site seeking tourism information will be directed to the appropriate places in the future. As it is now, the city’s website is just about government business.
Christine Vuletich, city finance director, told Cole he was a step ahead of everyone and that, yes, the appropriate links will be included in the redesign.
“All the city departments and others will be involved in designing the website,” Vuletich said.
Mayor Kathay Lovell asked for staff to send out examples of websites CivicPlus has done so the economic committee of Cole and Councilman Jerry Birdwell could take a look at them. However, in the council’s packet of information that day were examples of designs CivicPlus has done for Emeryville, Windsor, Mammoth Lakes, Maui and others.
South Lake Tahoe’s current site is 7-years-old and has always been difficult to navigate. It is not intuitive and information is often difficult to find.
Compounding the problem is some departments have created their own, separate site instead of having them be extensions of the city’s primary site. These sites will be consolidated into the main site during the redesign so there is uniformity.
The funding is budgeted in the 2009-10 budget, with $18,000 having been allocated from the economic development account. The $20,047 comes from the website capital improvement project account.
City staff determined it didn’t make sense to pay the $18,000 allocated for the old “prospector” website, so that’s how the design team wound up with more money.
The new site will be up and running some time in 2011.
Did anyone ever think of letting one of our local computer nerds have a shot at doing this design for the city? $38,000 seems like a crazy amount to spend when you can create them practically for free on your own with just the monthly cost of renting a server.
We have talented people here in the “Basin”…how did we get all the way back to Kansas?
One thing to consider is: if you give a job to someone who resides in South Lake Tahoe, some of the money you pay them will come back to the city in the form of Taxes.
I can see if something is highly specialized, but web design, and site maintenance is not.
Add another vote to the chorus. When did the city put an RAQ out for the new site and did it contain the same provisions for local contractors as the Angora work did and the school district work did? If not, why not? Does a council member have relatives in Kansas too?
Why isn’t the city jumping on the chance to build up local expertise in this “blue” area. Great for the city, great for the community, great for the future.
I agree: why are we out-sourcing work that locals can do just as well? We need to keep our city’s money in the basin!
I did some research on them and I think it’s a good idea. They boast to have award winning websites and their sites do look really nice they also have “e government tools” that look like they could benefit our community. I think if our website wins awards and gets our name out there we could really grow! I’d rather trust someone with experience and someone good then spend the money locally and get another crappy website.
I have now heard it all from this City Council. South Lake Tahoe has a myriad of fabulous web designers who could do that job better and probably for much less money. Why in the world would they choose a company out of state and out of town??? Any designer worth their salt could replicate what that company does…it truly is not rocket science.
Just another example of the lack of concern for controlling costs or the welfare of the local businesses that generate the revenue that pays for them, from our so called “elected representatives”.
To quote Councilman? Bruce Gekko, ” They (City Council) are worst than the Angora Fire.” At least the Angora fire only put 354 residents out of their homes. Our City Council’s (Grego, Lovell, Birdwell, and Cole) policies have put many hundreds out of their homes and businesses.
Nothing is to good for them, Vail (Heavenly), or the Stateline, Nevada crowd. They sell everything of value from South Lake Tahoe, (eg; TAU’s from RDA’s 2 and 3) to corporations that neither are within the City limits nor contribute to anything within our town.
They are turning our town into a Ghetto!
UNBELIEVABLE! I developed a joint venture website for the City of Cottage Grove, OR, the Economic Development Committee (EDC) of the Economic & Business Improvement District, and the Cottage Grove Area Chamber of Commerce and it was well under 38K. It was under 10k! Not to mention this beautiful website (Lake Tahoe News) that I developed that receives over 30,000 visitors a month and growing. No wonder the local economy is what it is! I wonder if they even looked for bids locally.