Council approves Kaizen contract to replace recreation-management system; no upfront license fees, 6% transaction fee
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Summary
Bellflower approved a five-year agreement with Kaizen Laboratories to replace the city’s recreation-management platform. The vendor will provide hardware and mobile-friendly registration, ticketing and point-of-sale tools with no upfront licensing costs; the city will pay transactional fees (vendor fee ~6% plus standard payment-processing fees).
The Bellflower City Council on April 14 authorized the city manager to execute Agreement File No. 1089 with Kaizen Laboratories Inc. to replace the city’s recreation-management system. The unanimous 5–0 vote followed a staff presentation on limitations of the current platform and a demonstration by Kaizen representatives.
Parks and Recreation staff described the existing system as increasingly outdated for point-of-sale and membership management and said it lacked a modern mobile-friendly interface. PJ Milano, Parks and Recreation director, highlighted key features Kaizen proposed: membership management for multiple centers (including the planned Oak Center), advanced event scheduling and ticketing, integrated online merchandising with print-on-demand and drop-shipping options, mobile point-of-sale (tablets/kiosks) for in-person events, and merchant integration for modern mobile payments (Apple Pay, Google Pay).
Kaizen’s lead presenter, Will Harrison, explained the company’s approach: a custom but repeatable implementation model for a limited set of communities (the vendor said it works with about 25–35 clients per year), mobile-first registration, Apple/Google wallet integration, and an emphasis on reducing staff support burden while increasing revenue capture.
The contract is five years and uses a transactional pricing model. Staff described the vendor fee at approximately 6 percent of transactions; payment-processing fees (e.g., Stripe) apply separately (staff cited the common processing rate of about 2.9 percent plus $0.30 per transaction). Kaizen will supply required hardware (tablets/readers/kiosks) within the agreement and provide onboarding and training. Staff said Kaizen’s model has no upfront licensing or annual platform fee; costs are offset by transactions and expected increases in registration and merchandise revenue.
Councilmember Victor Sanchez moved to authorize the city manager to execute the agreement; Councilmember Wendy Morris seconded. The motion passed 5–0 on a roll-call vote (Mayor Pro Tem Santanez, Council Members Coops, Morse, Sanchez and Mayor Dutton voting Aye).
Ending: With the contract approved, Parks staff will begin the onboarding process with Kaizen and schedule implementation steps, working to minimize disruption of existing registration seasons.
