City Council
259 N. Wilma Avenue
Ripon, CA 95366
MEMO
To: Honorable City Council
From: Jane Kilgore, Deputy City Clerk
Date: 12/13/2022
Subject: Website Update - CivicPlus
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Approve and authorize the Mayor to sign the agreements with CivicPlus for two modules CivicEngage and CivicOptimize in the not to exceed amount of $136,652 to be paid over a fiveyear period (funding source: General Fund).
BACKGROUND:
The City of Ripon website was created in 1998 by City staff and updated in 2015 by an outside contractor. Staff is recommending the City Council consider contracting with an outside contractor once again to update the City’s website.
DISCUSSION/ANALYSIS:
Staff has researched other municipal websites and developed the following goals for the 2023 update of the City of Ripon website:
1. Allow residents and businesses to use website as a “virtual city hall”.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals were forced to conduct much more of their business electronically than what they may have been accustomed to in the past. Prior to the pandemic, 28% of all website traffic was conducted using a mobile device. As of August 2022, this number has increased to 59%. The proposed website update will provide more intuitive and user-friendly options for residents and businesses to pay utility bills online, reserve rental facilities, sign up for recreation activities, and apply for building permits.
2. Primary source for communication with the community from any device.
Everyone gets information from their own preferred sources, which can include anything from a newspaper to their favorite social media site. Rather than trying to distribute information to the various newspapers and social media applications, the City of Ripon would use the website as the primary source of communication with the community. This will allow residents and businesses to easily find needed information from their mobile devices or home computers. Additionally, it will allow for consistent information to be relayed to the other sources of information, such as the newspaper and social media sites.
Staff will use the new website to publish informational newsletters to keep the public informed of important news and upcoming events (e.g., recreation sign ups, watering schedules, recycling schedule, etc). In addition to newsletters, the website will be updated with a responsive design allowing the website to automatically adapt to all devices, platforms and screen sizes.
3. Single process for individuals to report an issue and efficiently transmit to the appropriate department while communicating the status to the individual reporting the issue.
A focus of the City has been to resolve issues such as uneven sidewalks, graffiti, potholes, streetlights not working, and other similar issues that impact residents’ quality of life as quickly as possible. By using the website to allow individuals to report these types of issues in the community, it will allow for a faster response by staff to address these issues. The website will also be used to generate automatic status updates to the person reporting the issue so they are aware staff is working to address the issue and ultimately be notified when the issue is resolved.
4. Website must be user-friendly.
In order for a virtual City Hall to be successful as the first place residents go for information, it needs to be easy to use. The current website is difficult to navigate and find necessary forms and documents without knowing the specific department or form name. This forces the user to have to click through multiple pages to find the information they are seeking, which becomes frustrating. This update will provide a Document Center with a predictable and intuitive search bar, allowing residents to search for key words in documents.
Based on these goals, Staff has interviewed three outside contractors to update the City website and recommend the City Council approve and authorize the Mayor to sign the contracts with CivicPlus for two modules CivicEngage and CivicOptimize.
The first year costs of CivicEnage and CivicOptimize are $30,806 and $11,045, respectively.
Staff was able to secure a $20,000 discount off the first year and start-up costs. The contract is for five years with the cost going up 3% (reduced from 5%) on an annual basis. Below is a table summarizing the five-year cost.
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Totals
CivicEngage $30,806 $8,100 $8,343 $8,593 $8,851 $64,693 CivicOptimize $11,045 $14,890 $14,890 $15,337 $15,797 $71,959 $41,851 $22,990 $23,233 $23,930 $24,648 $136,652
Once the contract is approved, it is anticipated the new website will take four to six months to create and be ready for public use.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The new website is composed of two modules through CivicPlus: CivicEngage and CivicOptimize. The first-year costs of CivicEngage and CivicOptimize are $30,806 and $11,045 respectively. The total cost over the 5-year period is $136,652, which would be funded through the General Fund.
Attachments:
1. CivicPlus Contracts