Clintonville project to cost $9,700
By Bert Lehman
The city of Clintonville will be getting a newly designed website in the near future.
At it’s June 13 meeting, the Clintonville City Council approved awarding a contract to CivicLive to develop and build the new website for the city.
Clintonville City Administrator Sharon Eveland told the council the city received proposals from seven companies. One company was local, two were from within Wisconsin, while the remaining proposals were from out-of-state companies.
Eveland said two companies were eliminated immediately, one because it didn’t provide the required information, and the other because it was “astronomically” expensive.
The remaining companies were cut to two based on the presented proposals and a review of the company’s websites and references websites.
Eveland recommended the council approve the contract to CivicLive, which is located in California, at a cost of $9,700.
“This company is entirely dedicated to municipal and other government websites,” Eveland said. “They had a really good proposal. I was really impressed with their staff and the qualifications of the staff.”
The contract calls for CivicLive to host the city’s website, which will get it off the city’s servers.
The $9,700 price tag is an all-inclusive package, so there won’t be any hidden fees, Eveland said.
The annual maintenance cost of the contract is $1,250, which isn’t charged the first year. Eveland also said CivicLive typically deals with four-year contracts. The system is also transportable to other systems.
CivicLive also offered a 12 percent discount off the $9,700 if the full amount is paid up front.
The city had originally budgeted $30,000 for the website project.
Prior to approving CivicLive, Clintonville Mayor Lois Bressette expressed concerns about spending taxpayer money with a company located outside of Wisconsin.
“I’d like to say I prefer that our tax money be spent in the state of Wisconsin,” Bressette said.
“It was hard for me to make that decision because I do believe the same as you that we should really strive to support local and in state as much as possible,” Eveland responded. “But I just kept coming back to, despite not being a local company or in the state, I truly believe they’re going to be the best company for the project.”
The council approved the CivicLive contract by a 9-0 vote. Alderman Lance Bagstad was excused from the meeting.
Later in the meeting the council approved re-designating the remaining funds that were allocated for the website project toward an employee compensation study. That amount will go towards the city’s portion of the cost of the study. Clintonville utilities will also pay a portion of the cost of the study.
Eveland told the council that she didn’t have a final price of the study yet, but a “very rough, high ballpark rough estimate” was $24,000. She said the final cost might be less than that.
Police vehicles
The council approved by a vote of 7-2 to terminate the Clintonville Police Department’s vehicle purchase policy. The policy had given the department the option to purchase vehicles locally if the bids from local dealerships were within 7 percent of the lowest bid. Alderman Mark Doornink and Alderwoman Julie Stumbris voted no.
The police department will now follow the city’s policy for purchasing new vehicles. There is no 7 percent stipulation in this policy.
Seven Maples Park
Eveland informed the council that the East Central Wisconsin Planning Commission created a survey for the city of Clintonville to obtain community feedback on what residents would like to see developed within the Seven Maples Park area.
The city did not have to pay for the creation of the survey.
The survey is online, but residents can request paper copies of the survey from Clintonville City Hall.
Eveland said survey results will be compiled into a report and she will use those results to conduct a visioning session with the community, probably in August.
“We want to have the survey up as long as possible in order to get as many people as possible to provide feedback,” Eveland said. “The goal then is to work with the committees to create a master plan for the parks.”
Industrial park
When the Waupaca County Economic Development Corporation was brought up during the meeting, outgoing City Administrator Chuck Kell reminded council members that the city has to take some steps in the future to make the city’s north side industrial park “shovel ready.”
He said the city needs to rezone part of the industrial park as not all of it is zoned as industrial. Natural gas and electricity also need to be added.
“This was a good reminder to me to make sure that you’re aware of that going forward and to keep that on the front burner,” Kell told the council.
Fire department building
The council was informed that the Clintonville Fire Department will be painting the fire department building in order to make it stand out in the community.
Eveland said Fire Chief Shane Krueger made the request to her. The painting project will include painting the trim of the building “fire engine red.”
“It does need a paint job to begin with and the firefighters are volunteering their time and the fire department is covering the paint,” Eveland said. “It won’t cost anything to the city.”
Computer server
The city’s computer server died on June 9, Eveland told the council.
“Luckily because of everything the council did last fall, the backup servers, the servers that we had in place are now carrying everything with no issue,” Eveland said. “Had council not did what it did last fall we would have been dead in the water Friday morning.”
TID 3
The council unanimously approved Resolution 2017-12 Tax Incremental District Termination for TID 3.
Prior to the motion, Alderman Mark Doornink commented that the closure of the city’s TIDs is a good thing.
“Closing them means they were successful and allows us the ability to make new ones and create more opportunities for the city,” Doornink said.
Closed session
After meeting in closed session for 45 minutes, the council reconvened in open session. In open session, Bressette informed those in attendance that city staff has been directed to negotiate a development agreement with a proposed developer.
After the closed session, the council approved giving Clintonville City Clerk/Treasurer Peggy Johnson a bonus of $3,000 in appreciation of her taking on responsibilities beyond her job description during the many times when the city administrator was not in the office. Alderman Brad Rokus voted no.