Cordon Media’s bid of $58,865.00 was selected by City of Hamilton staff as the winning competitive bid for the new City of Hamilton website design.
Two, of seven, bids were fully considered by City staff. The other bid considered was $154,440.00 by eSolutionsGroup Limited. eSolutionsGroup worked on the acclaimed Region of Waterloo website which is often cited by Hamilton staff as a website to model upon.
Four of the five other bids were from Hamilton firms. 2Gen.net was disqualified. The cost proposals from factor[e], Orbital, and Wise & Hammer were not considered. The remaining bid was from Oakville’s Ufoundit Design Ltd.
Work to be complete by December
City staff, during Monday’s Web Redevelopment Committee, stated the design work for the new City website will be complete for December to allow the building of the website to beginning immediately afterwards and a launch of the new hamilton.ca to occur in 2014.
The Local Bid Issue
City staff also addressed the issue of local bids not qualifying for City website work. Staff stated they’ve held workshops with local business to explain the City’s procurement processes to ensure local bidders are not disqualified on technicalities or for mistakes in submitting their bids.
Provincial law does not allow the favouring of local bids.
City staff say there will be many contracts in the coming year and they will work to ensure local bids qualify for consideration.