In light of recent water outages and boil water advisories, the Baldwin City Council approved a community information software package during its Monday meeting that will notify residents of important events.
Chief Administrative Officer Emily Woodmaster explained to the council, due to citizen and customer concerns about the recent water main breaks, the city received quotes for an information system.
The three quotes were from Everbridge, OnSolve, and GoGov. The most expensive of the three was Everbridge, with GoGov a close second. OnSolve provided the lowest quoted amount.
Everbridge offered the most channels to communicate notifications to customers and citizens. Notifications can be sent via text, email, social media, pager, mobile app, website, and by phone. The cost per customer is 23 cents per month with unlimited usage. The city has 1,934 customers. Not all customers are water customers per se. Some are trash only customers, Woodmaster told the council.
The other two vendors had limitations on the number of notifications that could be sent in the course of a year, with additional fees for additional notifications over the fixed amount. Also, the two vendors offered the city 1 year contracts.
The contract for Everbridge is for three years. The cost for year one of the contract is $5,400. Year two will be $5,150 and year three would cost $5,304.50.
GoGov costs for one year was $4,700 (20 cents per customer per month) with OnSolve costing $1,200 (5 cents per customer per month) for one year.
City Attorney Jack Samuels told the council that going with the three year contract would require some discussion with the vendor. Future councils can not be bound to the terms of the contract unless there is language stating that the contract can be terminated. Currently, the contract only allows the city to terminate the agreement only if there is a breach of contract.
The council approved the three year contract with Everbridge by a 4-1 vote with Council Member Maarten Venter dissenting.
After the meeting, Woodmaster explained that once the program is in place, customers will have to come in to fill out an application for the notifications. She added that the cost of the service will be applied to customers’ water bills that sign up for the notification program.
