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Medical Lake council considers $2,500–$5,500 annual cost for social-media and website archiving to meet state law
Summary
Council and staff discussed options for social-media and website archival software to comply with Washington state public-records requirements and to add post-scheduling and management features; staff will research vendors and return with recommendations and a possible resolution.
City staff briefed the Medical Lake City Council on July 1 about vendor options for website and social-media archival software intended to meet Washington state public-records retention requirements and to reduce staff burden on public-records requests.
Staff said the range of solutions they reviewed runs roughly from $2,500 to $5,500 per year depending on features. The lower price would cover required archival capture and basic searchability; higher tiers add social-media post scheduling, multi-account posting, profanity/content flags, and other management features. “Somewhere between $2,500 and $5,500, we can find a solution that works well for the city,” staff said.
The presentation noted that state law requires retention of public records and associated metadata, and that manual or screenshot-based approaches are insufficient. A staff presenter described archiving software as automating capture of posts, comments and metadata so the city can respond to public-records requests and provide searchable records without continuous manual trolling of social feeds.
Council members raised practical questions about accounts and features. Staff said most vendors include up to five accounts in the quoted price; adding many more accounts would raise costs. Staff also noted the city currently has three staff members — Roxanne, Colton and Kylie — who share web and social tasks, and that public- records litigation and requests can be frequent. One council member framed the higher price as a potential staff-time savings: “If you put that at the $20.25 dollar an hour person, that’s about 16 hours,” a staff speaker said when comparing software cost to staff time.
There was no formal vote. Staff will continue vendor research, vet companies used by other cities and return to council with proposals and a draft resolution. Council expressed openness to a baseline archival solution with room to scale into additional social-media management features.
