HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 10413City of Palo Alto (ID # 10413)
City Council Staff Report
Report Type: Consent Calendar Meeting Date: 5/11/2020
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Summary Title: Citywide GIS On-Call Project Support Services
Title: Approval of ten (10) Five-year Contracts for On-call GIS Project Support
Services With: 1) Critigen LLC; 2) GIS Solutions, Inc.; 3) Utility Data Contracts,
Inc.; 4) Turf Image, Inc.; 5) Vestra Resources, Inc.; 6) Michael Baker
International, Inc.; 7) iSpatial Techno Solutions, Inc.; 8) Geographic
Information Services, Inc.; 9) Seven Tablets, Inc.; and, 10) Timmons Group,
Inc.: C20174611, for an Annual Collective Total Not-to-Exceed Amount of
$700,000 Annually, and a Five-year Collective Total Not-to-Exceed Amount of
$3,500,000, with all Work Subject to Assigned Task Order and Availability of
Funds
From: City Manager
Lead Department: IT Department
Recommendation
Staff recommends that Council approve, and authorize the City Manager or designee, to
execute the attached ten (10) separate five-year contracts with Critigen LLC; GIS
Solutions, Inc.; Utility Data Contracts, Inc.; Turf Image Inc.; Vestra Resources, Inc.;
Michael Baker International, Inc.; iSpatial Techno Solutions, Inc.; Geographic
Information Services, Inc.; Seven Tablets, Inc.; and Timmons Group, Inc.: Contract
C20174611 for GIS On-call Professional Services in a total amount not to exceed
$700,000 annually for all ten contracts collectively.
Executive Summary
A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a vital component of the City’s GIS strategy.
It provides essential geospatial information to support several mission-critical business
operations, including the Utilities’ Department’s system monitoring, land use analysis,
permit tracking, preventive maintenance, public safety, police computer-aided dispatch,
utilities billing and overall management of City operations and infrastructure. GIS also
provides information to numerous external agencies, cities, counties, public utilities, and
Stanford University to meet compliance requirements.
The City was an early adopter of GIS in the 1980s, but the legacy system has several
major functional gaps the City must surmount to be successful. These gaps in the City’s
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current geospatial environment reside in four areas:
• Missing Key GIS Integrations with internal systems
• Limited Mobile Capability
• Limited Web Capability
• Limited GIS Analysis Capability
To address the gaps listed above, the legacy GIS needs to be modernized to enhance
capabilities, fully leverage benefits of GIS, reduce the high cost of ownership, and to
have a broader adoption of GIS technology in the City.
The opportunity is to modernize the existing GIS with the selected vendors’ assistance
to increase user efficiency, improve data quality and data management, and expand the
effective use of the GIS by integrating with other business systems, for example, our
Customer Information System (CIS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, Tri-
City CAD/911 Dispatch system, Outage Management System (OMS), Utility Engineering
Systems, Public Works Asset Management Systems, and many others.
The Information Technology Department posted an RFP to seek qualified firms that can
provide on-call, time-limited, project-based GIS professional services on an as-needed
basis. Since the City’s GIS needs span many domains, and with a tight contractor
market in Silicon Valley, the City needs multiple vendors to ensure vendors with the
appropriate domain expertise are chosen and there are options available.
Under these ten contracts, vendors will not be guaranteed or assured of any specific
quantity of work to be performed. If work is performed by any one or more consultants,
the City will ensure that the aggregate total compensation across all ten vendors will
not exceed the total compensation allowed and current approved funding will span
multiple fiscal years.
Background
The City completed a strategic assessment study in 2017 with a consultant to guide the
City’s GIS advancement with enterprise GIS strategies and objectives, technology
recommendations, definitions of implementation operations options, along with phasing
and cost information.
The following are the high-level challenges of the City’s legacy GIS technology:
• The legacy GIS needs to be modernized to enhance capabilities, fully leverage
benefits of GIS and reduce the high cost of ownership
• The GIS needs to be accessible to a broader base of users through modern web
and mobile interfaces
• With the new system, GIS technology adoption, can be broader
• Missing key GIS Integrations with other enterprise systems
• Need to expand GIS analysis capability
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These will be mitigated by a replacement with a more modern and industry leading Esri
ArcGIS software as the new GIS platform for the City, for the following reasons:
• Industry dominant GIS solution
• Long-term viability
• Comprehensive toolset
• Data Compatibility / Interagency Relationships
• Esri eco-system is broad and deep, and has a robust user base
The RFP process sought to identify qualified firms that can provide on-call GIS project
support services on an as-needed basis. The on-call GIS project support services that
the City typically seeks are as follows, but not limited to:
• GIS infrastructure setup and ArcGIS platform configuration project support
• Spatial database management project support
• GIS software, application, database development, and integration projects
• Spatial modeling and analysis projects
• Real-time integration and streaming data visualization projects
• CAD and GIS integration projects
• Utility Department-specific GIS projects
• GIS data maintenance projects
Discussion
With the modernization of the GIS the City would further the City’s business operations
in support of residents, visitors, and businesses in the community.
Since the City’s GIS needs span many domains such as Utilities, Public Safety, Planning,
and Public Works, executing agreements with multiple vendors would ensure the
relevant domain expertise are chosen when project support services are needed.
This contract is on the City’s professional services template, which permits the City to
terminate without cause/for convenience by providing written notice to the contractor.
In the event the City finds itself facing a challenging budget situation, and it is
determined that City resources need to be refocused elsewhere, the City can terminate
for convenience. Other options include termination due to non-appropriation of funds or
amending the contract to reduce the cost, for example, by reducing the scope of work.
The contract may also be temporarily suspended by written notice of the City Manager.
Summary of City Proposal Process
RFP Issued April 1, 2019
Pre-Proposal Meeting – Non-Mandatory April 10, 2019
Deadline for questions, clarifications April 17, 2019
Proposals Due April 24, 2019
Proposals Received 12
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Finalist Identified 10
Number of Vendors Selected for Contract 10
Resource Impact
The annual funding for this contract ($700,000) was budgeted in the Information
Technology Fund which was approved in the Fiscal Year 2019 adopted budget for GIS
modernization. Funds were reappropriated in Fiscal Year 2020 as the RFP for these on-
call project support services was issued at the end of Fiscal Year 2019. Due to the
length of time needed for evaluation and the contracting review phases for these ten
contracts, the funds will be encumbered before year end into these contracts. Staff will
evaluate the further need for funding of these contracts during the Fiscal Year 2022
budgeting preparations. Subsequent years of the contract will be subject to approval
through the annual budgeting process.
Stakeholder Engagement
Vendors were evaluated and chosen through the City’s RFP process, RFP 174611.
Environmental Review
Approval of these contracts does not constitute a project under the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA); therefore, an Environmental Assessment is not
required.
Attachment A:
Below is a link to each of the ten contracts:
• Critigen LLC C20174611A
• GIS Solutions INC C20174611B
• UDC INC C20174611C
• Turf Image C20174611D
• Vestra C20174611E
• Michael Baker INC C20174611F
• iSpatial C20174611G
• Geographic Information Services INC C20174611H
• Seven Tablets INC C20174611I
• Timmons Group INC C20174611J
Attachments:
• Attachment A: Critigen LLC C20174611A
• Attachment A: Links to Contracts
• Attachment B: GIS Solutions INC C20174611B
• Attachment C: UDC INC C20174611C
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• Attachment D: TURF IMAGE C20174611D
• Attachment E: VESTRA C20174611E
• Attachment F: MICHAEL BAKER INC C20174611F
• Attachment G: ISpatial C20174611G
• Attachment H: Geographic Information Services INC C20174611H
• Attachment I: Seven Tablets INC C20174611I
• Attachment J: Timmons Group INC C20174611J