City Council considers contract to overhaul city website
The City Council is set to consider whether to approve a contract with local design firm Maycreate to overhaul the city's website, a move some say is much needed.
Councilwoman Deborah Scott said she has received numerous complaints from residents about the difficultly of using the city's website.
"It doesn't have the information where people would anticipate finding it and there's not enough public information," she said. "It needs a search mechanism that allows for (the differences in) how people search. Like garbage; some people call it garbage, some call it trash and some call it refuse."
According to Jana Lowery, assistant director of the city's Information Services Division, Maycreate proposes completely redesigning the the website, which includes 30 sub-sites for individual departments. She said the search function will be improved, the site will be more interactive and the city's IT staff will have more flexibility to make the site meet customer demands.
The contract proposal is $128,000 for phase one, and $200,000 for phase two, based on an $85 per hour charge, to create a content management system, a new database and migration of existing data.
Improving the website won't be cheap, Scott said.
"I would prefer to always pay as little as possible for whatever, whether it be a loaf of bread at the grocery story or a service at my house," Scott said. "If I have a leaky pipe I have to pay the price for a plumber who has been through training and knows what to do. People who do these (computer projects) can't work for free and their services are in demand."
Lowery said Maycreate's budget proposal allows the city to tackle a full redesign within the city's budget constraints, starting with the website's back end.
"It is taking our site and building a structure that will hold everything. But we will not bring everything over at first. We build the frame work and do the rest later," she said.
Lowery said the project includes a tremendous amount of data and the departments want to offer a much higher level of service.
"The office of sustainability already has funds for their (individual) design and they have a lot of ideas about media interaction as far a videos, slide shows and between citizens and chattanooga.gov," Lowery said. "And this new content management system will allow us to internally upgrade our system."
The city's website was last updated in the early 2000s.
The council meets at 6 p.m. at 1000 Lindsay St. The proposal will be discussed in detail at the 3 p.m. agenda session meeting.
