The City of Tacoma has chosen a Toronto-based company to remake its website, and at least two local companies that bid for the job are puzzled by the choice.
Out of four finalists in August, Intrafinity was chosen to provide a new content-management system, city spokeswoman Karrie Spitzer said Friday. Intrafinity’s bid of $63,216 was not the lowest, but “it was the best tool for the best price,” Spitzer said.
The lowest bidder, at $49,900, was Business Internet Services/Rusty George, a collaboration between two Tacoma companies. BIS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tacoma-based Topia Technologies.
Topia CEO Janine Terrano said the decision to award the contract to an out-of-country firm made no sense.
“I really don’t want (our concern) to be portrayed as sour grapes,” Terrano said. “Our city, that promotes economic development, (now has gone) out of its way to send business not even in our state but to Canada, when we have local companies that can do the job.”
According to city records, 13 companies initially responded to the city’s request for proposals. Four are based in Tacoma, and one each in Tumwater, Lacey, Seattle and Bellevue.
In addition to Intrafinity and BIS/Rusty George, the other finalists were:
• Lacey-based Cayzen Technologies, $157,700; and
• Tacoma-based SiteCrafting, $126,500.
SiteCrafting president Brian Forth said Friday that the figure the city considered its final bid, $126,500, included several features the city didn’t ask for but that it should have considered when re-doing a website. He said his firm’s bid, if narrowly tailored to the city’s request, would have been in the $65,000-$70,000 range.
“I fault us for not identifying better in our response what specifically was necessary in their proposal,” Forth said. “I would have hoped they would have looked closer at our proposal. What’s troubling is everyone I talked to says they ranked us high, so I don’t know how we didn’t win.”
Spitzer said “any of these tools would have worked great. When it came down to it, Interfinity met all of our needs, and they suggested other things that would add value to try to communicate with our citizens.”
Intrafinity ranked the highest of the four finalists based on factors including extensive tools for archiving and meeting document retention requirements and the ability to set up collaborative work spaces with residents, she said.
Intrafinity also offered a proprietary system, which can be more expensive but is more secure. BIS/Rusty George’s system was based on Drupal, an open-source software that could be supported even if the city chose to end its contract with BIS.
The city is finalizing the contract, Spitzer said, which “will be in the ballpark of $65-75,000 with ongoing annual maintenance fees of $5,000 (per) year.”
She said the city budgeted $350,000 for the website upgrade, which is expected to launch at the end of January.
“We are on a very aggressive timeline,” Spitzer said.
Kathleen Cooper: 253-597-8546
kathleen.cooper@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/business
Twitter: @KCooperTNT
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