At its Monday, September 21 meeting, the College Park City Council will consider renewing a one-year, $31,259.18 contract with CivicPlus for three City communication services: emergency notifications, website accessibility, and social media archiving.

The proposed contract includes:

  • $18,742.50 for the emergency and mass-notification platform, including text and voice alerts, geographic targeting, weather information, polling, and emergency integrations.
  • $4,591.91 for AudioEye, which provides accessibility tools for the City’s website.
  • $7,924.77 for social media archiving, including web snapshots.

The emergency-notification system allows the City to quickly send important announcements and geographically targeted alerts during severe weather, emergencies, and public-safety incidents. More than 700 members of the public currently subscribe to the service.

AudioEye helps make the City’s website more accessible to people with visual impairments and other needs. Its features include changes to contrast, text size and fonts, along with options to remove animations, adjust colors, highlight content, and modify cursor displays.

The City uses the social media archiving service to preserve posts and comments from its official accounts. This supports the City’s records-retention responsibilities and allows staff to respond efficiently to Maryland Public Information Act requests.

The subscription includes a set of optional Risk Management and Analytics, or RMA, capabilities. However, the City does not use these functions. The platform is used strictly for records retention and public-records compliance—not for sentiment analysis, monitoring public opinion, identifying “fans and critics,” or profiling residents.

The combined cost of the three programs exceeds the City Manager’s $30,000 contracting authority, which is why Council approval is required. The Council may approve the renewal, request additional information, or decline it. Staff recommends approving the contract so that the City can continue providing emergency alerts, website-accessibility assistance, and legally compliant social media records management.