Saturday, November 24, 2012

Tangled Web(site)

Council meetings are usually entertaining and last Tuesday's was no exception. Sat through the morning show and left during the intermission (executive session and lunch break.) Didn't make it back before the afternoon show had started and I missed one of the most entertaining parts. An issue that I really have issues with: the City website.

The contract for the current city website was approved back in 2004. The current site is based on a proprietary system from GovOffice.com. It took a while for the site to get usable and I have several emails back and forth with city staff on problems and suggestions. Today, 8 years later there are still problems with features such as credit card information handling and keeping the agenda packets on the website. Public information staff has done a lot of work like connecting the city website with social media sites like facebook and twitter and work arounds like using slideshare to hold city council packets and information that won't fit on the website. City staff has done a lot of work to get information out and overcome the limits of the current website. I've also heard from staff members that use the system that it's a royal pain to deal with. I'd heard and seen enough problems with the site that I have been trying to get the city to change system and philosophies for several years. Earlier this year the city finally went out with an RFP for a new website.

In May, they came to council with a request to authorize a contract, not to exceed $40,000 to Vision Internet of California. From the memo in the agenda packet "Financial Impact: The costs for the website design, hosting, and training staff will be $40,000.00." A bit high but not totally unexpected. I remember this being presented to the city council as a complete, turnkey operation. Vision Internet would design and maintain the site, migrate everything from the old site to the new one, train staff to operate it, and host it on their own high availability servers. City council approved the following from the memo in the agenda packet.

  • "a. Approving 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 authorizing the City Manager to negotiate and execute a contract with the recommended vendor
  • b. Authorizing a budget amendment for the project funds in an amount not to exceed
    $40,000.00 to cover costs of designing the new website, training staff, and hosting the
    newly designed site."
Looked like a done deal, and I  was hopeful a new website, at least a beta version, might be a Christmas present for the citizens of San Angelo. Last Tuesday, Nov. 20th, there was a budget amendment on the agenda that included $90,000 to negotiate a contract and amend the budget for the new website. Wait a minute. Hadn't this had been approved back in May? All of it including the budget amendment? And what was the extra $50,000 for? Simplest explanation would have been that too much time had elapsed and it needed re-approval. And maybe the $90k was just a typo and $40k was the real deal. I watched the video, and no, staff was saying that $90k was the true amount and that the $40k  was only for website design. The extra $50k was needed for training and new, upgraded servers to host the website. Like I said I wish I had been there but the replay on channel 17 was very entertaining. You could tell that staff was caught completely flat footed. The excuses they gave for the increase don't make sense when you look at what was in the May 1st agenda packet and what was recorded in the minutes. Training costs were included in the original proposal, and there was no need for additional servers at the city because the website would be hosted on Vision Internet servers. Package price, tax title and license $40k as approved in May. One further point I found out is that Vision Internet doesn't sell hardware. If there were additional servers and equipment required, that would need to be an additional contract, probably as part of the city's normal server upgrade program.

This highlights two problems our new city manager must deal with. First, staff has developed a habit of bringing parts of projects to city council piece meal and without complete project information. This time they tried to say that what was approved in May was just a portion of the total project and it was only last Tuesday they were providing information on the rest of the project. Earlier in meeting a similar situation happened on an agreement with SAPAC. The rental/lease agreement for office space was brought forward as an isolated, stand alone item. There have been some concerns about this agreement expressed at prior council meetings, and without some big picture information on the entire auditorium/city hall renovation project and SAPAC's involvement and contribution commitments it's hard to make a good decision. As presented to the council Tuesday the agreement does look and smell like a giveaway of a major city asset to a politically connected group. Add to that the cost overruns and confusion over whether or not the HVAC plant and landscaping were included in the original package voted on as part of the city hall plaza project and it's easy see how council might be getting a bit irritable. I'm sure they feel like they would if they were buying a new car and as the sales manager is handing the keys he says "Congratulation on your new car. I think now we might want to talk about putting tires on it." 
Now that I've wandered into mistakes made in handling the website contract so far, let me make a couple of suggestions. There needs to be a shift in philosophy by the city about the internet. Functionally, the city doesn't have "a" website. The main sanangelotexas.us address is effectively a portal into a series of other internet applications and sites. I could get long winded on this (actually did but erased it) but the city doesn't need a Swiss Army Knife type of website. What the city needs is a functional toolbox that allows people to exchange information and do business using those internet tools, and visible website is really just the box that keeps all these specialized tools where they can be used efficiently and effectively. This needs to be an open standards based toolbox so that as new tools are needed and developed we don't have to keep going back to a single source and hope they have an adequate tool.

Let's get ASU and their computer science department involved. They have expertise and equipment. They might be interested in doing the city's internet projects as a research and training vehicle. 
Get the city involved with projects like Code For America and see what they can surprise us with. 
Go with an open solution, preferably open source, that can help drive down the cost of government and give us greater flexibility to respond quickly in a fast changing world.

We need a new website for the City of San Angelo. We need an updated philosophy on how the city and its citizens use the internet. We need an honest, accurate, and complete plan for the projects that will get us where we need to be long term. What was put before council would barely serve us today and is not what we need for the future. We also need to get staff to keep up and do their homework before they come before city council and keep their story complete and straight.

26 comments:

  1. absolutely correct! i remember when the 40k was proposed - i still say it's rediculous - and 90k is even worse. there are any number of local companies that should be all over this. the city is seriously technologically deprived - and there's really no excuse for it.

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  2. My company has been the lead developer of government and government-like projects across the country, such as the recent redesign and launch of sdge.com in San Diego. We're currently working on a county government website for an entity in northern California. We use modern web standards and open source platforms. At the local level, we were the developers of the the re-launch of SonoraBank.com. I have not marketed myself locally very well. I didn't even know the city was attempting to redesign its website, or had a bid out there. But, we're located right across the street from city hall in the Wells Fargo building. I've seen every problem with the web development process every imagined and I'm happy to help someone at the city navigate this. -- Joe Hyde, Hyde Interactive, joeh@hydeinteractive.com

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    1. Sorry you didn't get a chance to look at or bid on the RFP. According to the May agenda packet, they only contacted one local firm and that was an advertising firm. Not too sure how they selected who to contact but the list isn't very large or exhaustive. It also appears that input from outside city hall was studiously ignored.

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    2. Have to wonder where and how San Angelo City project request for bids are made public. I see some in the San Angelo Standard Times, but the SAST’s readership is so low they should use additional sources to get the information out to local businesses.

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    3. I have more than enough business and in May we were getting deep into the SonoraBank.com project. I wasn't watching bids like I am now. The funny thing about all of this is: A San Angelo company is building a government website in California while a California company may be building a website for San Angelo. Ah, the irony!

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  3. Good article. Very informative. Thanks for sharing the information.

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  4. Perhaps you could explain “open source.” It has been my experience that government purchasing agents are looking for “all in the box” technologies with a proven track record.

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    1. It will take a complete article to go into open source for government but we can start by saying that much open source software is proven technologies with a long track record. Much of the internet runs on open source software. The most used webserver is Apache. Google runs on a customized Linux system. The White House website (and several major political sites) runs on Drupal. NSA has contributed to and uses a security enhanced version of Linux.

      Just some examples. The reason to go open source for many government functions is transparency, openness, and cost savings. Will do an expanded explanation in the near future. Now I have to get ready for the council meeting tomorrow.

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    2. The entire state of Georgia is transitioning to Drupal. Much of the federal government is on Drupal. MittRomney.com was a Drupal site... Here's a 3-page article on why: http://www.govtech.com/policy-management/Why-Big-Sites-Run-Drupal.html

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    3. http://www.govtech.com/policy-management/Why-Big-Sites-Run-Drupal.html

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  5. Given the city's naming convention for RFPs, doesn't the website proposal suggest it might be rather old? The bid was gotten in 2011 and considered for approval in May 2012.

    In the November 20 council meeting Michael Dane suggested the contract amount had increased from $40,000 for the original scope of work.

    I know the website had been pulled from the budget amendments last meeting. That said, did the topic arise today?

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    1. The website was mentioned during the second reading on the budget amendment. They mentioned that the website was not part of the current budget amendment and would have a separate presentation next council meeting.

      If Mr. Dane is correct that the amount needed to do the original scope of work has increased then a new contract would be required. The May council approval only allowed for a contract "not to exceed" $40,000.

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  6. Anthony may get a server through a grant request through Texas Department of State Health Services. It's in the emergency management grant presented last council meeting. We'll see how the web site request comes back, server wise.

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  7. The web request is in the December 18th council packet. The city went from barely any information to information overload. I can see a few council members eyes glazing over by the time the presentation hits the third services/maintenance option.

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  8. Saw part of the city council discussion on the proposed new web site. What is the 100 Gigabytes about?

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    1. 100 Gigabytes will be the total amount of storage space that the new website will be able to use on the hosting service they will be using. That's quite a bit more then the current website has but today it's common for space to be virtually unlimited. Modern multimedia files such as video recordings and presentations can use up storage very rapidly. There are hosting services out there that offer unlimited storage.

      Hope this cleared things up a bit. If not, let me know.

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    2. Does the $90,000 include a on site server to store data? This sounds like a bad deal. They would have done better to go to Best Buy and consulted the Geek Squad!

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    3. The total is no $90k. It's a bit over $40k. $90k is the total amount they have in a fund that could be used for the website, not what they are spending (yet.)

      The server the website will be hosted on will not be in city hall. It should be hosted in a redundant server farm that Vision Internet operates for it's customers. We don't really want the city to have to operate the webserver. The hardware part of it is the smallest cost. There are the costs of the extra communications lines needed to support all the traffic, and the personnel costs to operate and maintain the servers and website. It's better and cheaper to contract that out to someone that specializes in it. This is way beyond what the geek squad could handle.

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    4. The city engineering department is running Bentley System’s Microstation with GIS capability on an Intergraph Workstation and the Police Department has a similar workstation setup. Shaw cable ran Microstation’s CAD software and the Texas Department of Transportation office on the Loop used Microstation; however when I asked the Tom Green County Library System to order two books on using Microstation to make people aware this software was available and being used in our area they refused.

      Does the city have any computer people, computer analysts on the payroll or just users?

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  9. The city and county government both have IT staff. More than just users.

    TxDOT has adopted Microstation as their CAD software instead of Autocad. Many organizations that have to work with TxDOT have also switched to Microstation. Been like that for a long time. Intergraph GIS software is also very common but fills a different purpose. Lots of different software packages are needed to run a city government.

    Can't think of a reason the local library would not order the books unless they were expensive (which happens with some of these books) and they didn't see the demand for them. Might have been able to do an inter-library loan. That's another question. And were you looking for textbooks?

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  10. The books I suggested cost about $100.00 each and would have been an asset to the community. Local students had only the choice of training in AutoCAD and had to learn Microstation on the job.

    The library has numerous books on how to use various computer programs. My opinion has been for a long time is that the Tom Green County Library System needs s a director who is more knowledgeable of modern technology and willing to investigate new ideas.

    Microstation is not an Intergraph Software program. Microstation was developed by Bentley Systems of Exton, Pennsylvania. Microstation has evolved into full feature GIS program.

    I worked on an intergraph VAX based workstation back in the 1980s If I remember correctly the IGDS software was written in Fortran and I had to type in the commands. No GUI interface.

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    1. I have used both. I know Intergraph is a separate company from Bentley that does Microstation. Most high end CAD software at least plays nice with GIS and provides some level of GIS functionality and interaction and Microstation is doing what AutoDesk and other CAD/CAE software companies are doing. There are still specialized GIS programs such as those by Intergraph and today they run on common workstation systems. VAX systems haven't been made for several years. The software of today may have roots back in Fortran, or Lisp etc. but those roots are not visible unless you dig. All the software you mentioned runs on Windows based workstations.

      There may be some issues at the library but an interlibrary loan might be a solution. You are basically looking for our library to stock textbooks and provide training not available in local classrooms. The use and shelf life of a book that specialized might not justify the expense in the library's eyes, especially when other books will have a much longer use life and reach a wider audience. Convince TxDOT to supply Microstation materials to libraries. Might be easier. Convince some of the users to donate older reference materials as they upgrade their systems and software. Convince Howard or ACC or ASU to teach Microstation classes. Download the free trial. Books on Microstation aren't much good without the software to actually use to learn. Bentley also has some online training materials.

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  11. Microstation began running on DOS. Microstation had a GUI interface before Microsoft came out with Windows.


    One of the purposes of a library is acquire and provide learning materials to the whole community. Last word to you.

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    1. Many CAD programs (including Microstation and Autocad) predate Windows. There are surveyors in town still using some of the old DOS based CAD programs. Microsoft didn't invent the GUI (neither did Apple) and they are still struggling to do it well.

      I agree that a library is there to support the whole community. "Learning materials" is just a part of that support. Specialized learning materials often only benefit a very small section of the community. When you get into a moving target like software training materials, it can be hard to justify spending money for materials that will only be used infrequently by a very small section of the whole community for a relatively short time before being obsolete. This is especially true of software where books without the software to use side by side don't provide much learning value. And software is very much a moving target. Microstation is the current software used by TxDOT and our city engineer. That is subject to change with a change of senior bureaucrats and without notice.

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  12. I know the people at Xerox developed the GUI interface. I worked out of a rural field office as a survey draftsman back in the 1970's for the Nova Scotia Forest Service. In the winter time, I had to start a fire in our stove to warm the ink for my rapidograph. An EDM was high teck.

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    1. Lots of people raided Xerox PARC's dumpsters. They weren't the only ones doing gui back then. Just the best.

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