Businesses are calling for a shop-local policy after a city website redesign contract went to a Kansas company.
A group of local designers, printers and marketing specialists met with the mayor and a few councillors after they learned of the contract award.
Louise Wallace of Mediability Corporate Communications, who owns the one local company of six businesses selected by city staff to receive the Request for Proposal (RFP) but did not bid on the contract, said she didn’t see evidence of a genuine intention to see the job go to a local company.
“I don’t think it was done maliciously. There were four firms that were really good at this and they wanted one of them to win it.”
Wallace said she is not angry with city leaders, but this might have been an opportunity for three or four local businesses to work together with a team leader to provide the service.
“Our message is, ‘we’re here, we like to think of ourselves as very creative, lots of us have won regional, provincial and national awards, but we were just left out of the discussion. We want to be a part of the solutions. If the city wants to raise our tax money, are we not good enough to be part of the solution when it comes time to spend it?”
She said the local businesses would like to see the money circulate locally, noting a $25,000 contract might be the biggest job local companies would see in three years.
“This isn’t a selfish ‘poor me’ plea... What is the multiplier effect of $25,000?”
In response to the web redesign contract, local businesses have launched a website, http://www.no-place-like-home.ca/, to share their concerns and keep the shop-local conversation going in the community.
Mayor Nancy Cooper said she has been contacted by a number of people about a shop-local policy.
“I think the biggest thing is, I was under the impression that all our RFPs went out in the local papers,” she said, noting she’s since learned that sometimes the city selects who receives the RFPs when looking for specific services. “Municipal websites are fairly complex. They (city staff) looked at a lot of them online... They were looking for specific things for ours.”
In hindsight, Cooper said, she could have looked more closely at the plan.
“Salmon Arm does need to be a better partner (to the businesses). “We’ll certainly be looking at that.”
Carl Bannister, the city’s chief administrative officer, has the authority to award contracts up to $100,000 provided they meet criteria such as highest-ranked and lowest cost. In the case of the website redesign, the award went to council for approval as it was not the lowest cost. He said there are a couple of references to shop local in the city’s procurement policy.
“All things being equal, local bids will be selected. We did that when we went through the janitorial contract. Two bids were virtually identical so the local one was selected.”
He said the issue of buy-local policies comes up regularly for local governments.
“Perhaps that’s something council will want to debate. There are two sides of it – when we try to favour local companies, it can discourage, over time, external companies from bidding on proposals of any nature, which can result in decreased options and less affordability over time. That’s one aspect of it.”