NYC-based firm will redesign City of Baltimore’s website for $286K

A New York City-based company will redesign the City of Baltimore’s website. The cost: $286,000.
Interpersonal Frequency was selected from a list of eight bidders “for the design, development and annual hosting for the City of Baltimore’s website,” according to the bidding document issued by the Mayor’s Office of Information Technology (MOIT) in November 2013. (Hat-tip to Baltimore Sun city hall reporter Luke Broadwater for tweeting out who won the bid.)
Interpersonal Frequency’s original bid was $286,367. The New York City company is also responsible for the website work for the District of Columbia Public Library. Current MOIT director Chris Tonjes was previously employed as the CIO of the D.C. Public Library System prior to becoming the CTO of Baltimore city in July 2012.
“Although I was aware of, and approved, their work at the library, I did not select them or work directly with them on the website,” said Tonjes. “I had a small team of people who worked directly with them, and they were selected through a competitive process.”
For the Baltimore redesign, Tonjes added, the procurement process was similar: three MOIT managers graded each of the eight bids, and the highest-scoring bid was recommended for the Baltimore city government website redesign. (Scoring criteria is found on pages 4 and 5 of the bid.)
“I am never part of any selection panel since I do not want to influence any procurement,” he said.
Baltimore city had done a partial redesign of its website that it unveiled in early summer 2012. The unfinished redesign was the work of the city’s previous CIO, according to the Baltimore Sun.
The only Baltimore city firm to submit a bid for the website redesign was The Canton Group, which was also the highest bidder.