Development and Hosting Services

The vendor required to provide development and hosting for the design, development, and hosting for a new municipal website that is fully accessible, user-focused, and reflective of the city’s character and
values.
- The new website will demonstrate service excellence, accessible government, ease of use and design aesthetics while incorporating design thinking and a customer-centric approach.
- Website platform and content management system (CMS)
•    Implementation of a new CMS that meets all state accessibility standards and supports compliance with state standards. 
•    Flexible and secure platform designed for municipal operations, allowing staff across the organization to easily add, edit, and manage content. 
•    Robust approval workflows, version control, and permissions management for multiple user roles. 
•    Cloud-based hosting solution with country data residency. 
•    Integration with analytics tools to support data-driven decision-making.
- Accessibility, compliance, and inclusivity
•    Full compliance with accessibility for act, web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 aa, and legislation. 
•    Built-in accessibility tools, automated compliance checks, and user-friendly templates that enable staff to maintain ongoing accessibility compliance. 
•    Accessibility audits and quality assurance testing during all project phases. 
•    Accessibility training and reference documentation for staff.
- Sitemap, content strategy, migration, and support requirement
•    Conduct a full audit of the city’s current website content and information architecture. 
•    Identify content gaps, outdated materials, and usability issues affecting user task completion. 
•    Provide recommendations for content restructuring, plain-language updates, consolidation, and removal. 
•    Develop a new recommended sitemap, informed by analytics and user experience methods. 
•    Establish a clear content strategy and taxonomy aligned with municipal services and user needs. 
•    Assist with content migration, including formatting, cleanup, and accessibility remediation. 
•    Provide content writing and editing support as required.
- Search functionality
•    Support integrated search functionality with strong search capabilities.
•    Preference for fully integrated search function, rather than third-party overlay.
•    Demonstrated evidence that the proposed search tool offers improved accuracy, speed, and usability compared to externally hosted search platforms. 
•    Integrations and digital services
•    Seamless integration with escribe for agendas, minutes, livestreams, and council documents.
•    Integration with existing and future municipal systems, including Esri geographic information systems (GIS), third-party APIS, and databases.
•    Ability to support e-commerce transactions (e.g., payments, forms, registrations).
•    Option to include develop microsites for sections of the municipality (i.e., museum, library, economic development, etc.).
•    Offer options to integrate ai tools now or in the future.
- User experience and design
•    Application of design thinking and a customer-centric lens to improve user pathways and digital service outcomes.
•    Responsive, mobile-optimized design ensuring compatibility across all devices and browsers.
•    Clean, modern design that visually reflects port history, culture, and natural beauty.
•    Support for visual media, embedded videos, social media feeds, and other multimedia formats.
•    Compliance with established corporate branding and visual identity standards.
- Online forms and webform capability requirement
•    Provide a comprehensive, built-in online forms solution within the proposed CMS.
•    Support a full range of form types, including inquiries, applications, registrations, surveys, and other municipal service needs.
•    Allow configuration of both basic and advanced forms, including conditional logic and dynamic fields.
•    Include integrated email handlers for automated notifications, confirmations, and internal routing.
•    Offer optional e-commerce add-on functionality for secure payment collection (the city currently uses the payment us payment portal).
•    Ensure the transfer and rebuilding of all high-priority forms from the current website to the new website as part of the project.
- Media library
•    Provide a comprehensive, centralized media library integrated throughout the CMS.
•    Allow staff to upload and manage images, documents, videos, and files easily.
•    Include filtering, tagging, and categorization tools to support efficient media organization and retrieval.
•    Enable media items to be added, removed, updated, or recategorized with full flexibility.
- Events calendar
•    Offer “event submission” look that will allow community members to submit events through the website, that would be published to an events calendar. 
•    Allow staff to moderate the content.
- Testing, quality assurance, and launch
•    Comprehensive testing for performance, functionality, accessibility, and browser and device compatibility.
•    Load and stress testing to ensure site reliability.
•    User acceptance testing in collaboration with city staff.
•    Final migration, go-live support, and post-launch performance review.
- Training and knowledge transfer
•    Training for content authors, administrators, and accessibility champions.
•    Creation of training materials, video tutorials, and reference manuals.
•    Optional ongoing training or refresh sessions post-launch.
- Ongoing support, hosting, and maintenance
•    Provide reliable, high-quality technical support with clearly defined service expectations.
•    Include a service level agreement outlining response times, resolution targets, uptime expectations, and available support channels.
•    Offer a built-in system for submitting support requests (e.g., support web form or ticketing mechanism).
•    Ensure acknowledgment of support tickets within 24 hours.
•    Provide average resolution timelines for support requests and demonstrate capacity to meet or exceed municipal expectations.
•    Maintain communication through email or phone for troubleshooting and collaborative problem solving.
•    Deliver ongoing CMS updates, security patches, and accessibility improvements.
•    Provide continued access to technical support and consultation services after launch.
•    Offer optional support packages for ongoing content updates, design enhancements, or expanded services.

- Contract Period/Term: 4 years
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: January 6, 2026