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DESTINATION MANAGEMENT,
INC. |
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P.O. |
May 29, 2008
TO:
City Manager
FROM:
President & CEO
Re: Request for bed tax reserve funds
The Lawrence CVB requests the use of $15,000 of bed tax reserve funds to rebuild VISITLAWRENCE.COM.
Website is a critical vehicle to communicate with potential visitors today. VISITLAWRENCE.COM was created along with the Chamber’s website and has been hosted by The World Company on a platform no longer relevant or serviceable by The World Company. There are many issues that we have not been able to overcome in attempting to move the site to another provider.
In order to find a more efficient way to use bed tax funds for this much needed project, we have worked with David Scherrer, Programmer with KU’s Advanced Learning in Technology Education Consortia (ALTEC) to find a cost-effective solution to our needs. David is a KU employee working with graduate students to provide this service. We have explored the following options: 1) work out a license agreement with The World Company to move the site; 2)leave the site as is with the World Company which will no longer provide for changes and updates as needed; or 3) rebuild a new site from scratch on a new server. The third option seems to be our only option at this time.
The cost of this option is lower than the bids that CVB staff obtained from 4 companies with estimates ranging from $20,000 to $56,000.