City of Santa Monica Poised to Spend $1 Million for New Website

By Jorge Casuso

June 7, 2018 -- The Santa Monica City Council is expected to approve a $1 million contract to create a new municipal website that will replace the one created in 2000.

The two-year contract with Edenspikermann L.A. Corporation includes creating the website and providing maintenance for one year, staff said in its report.

The Council will take up the contract at its meeting next Tuesday as part of its consent calendar.

The redesigned website will streamline access to content -- which currently totals more than 22,000 pages -- and make it more adaptable to mobile phones, staff said in its report.

The result, staff said, will be "a modern, mobile-friendly city-wide website that creates a unified, customer-focused experience in alignment with the vision for a 21st century government."

The current site, which was significantly updated eight years ago to add templates for mobile phones, runs on outdated technology that has hindered the site’s ability to evolve, staff said.

"In the last decade, technologies such as smartphones and tablets have become the typical way people access online services and the City of Santa Monica’s digital presence has not kept pace," staff wrote.

The current site is organized by department, creating "a sprawling and inconsistent leviathan in desperate need of being comprehensively redesigned to contemporary standards and expectations," staff said.

The new design will be based on a "digital strategy project" completed by staff and a consultant in April 2017 that determined how to provide a "more robust digital experience," staff said.

The new site will use a "cloud-hosted, open source content management system," according to staff.

Edenspiekermann -- whose clients have included the City of Amsterdam, Red Bull and Silicon Valley Bank -- was one of 46 firms that responded to the Request for Proposal (RFP).