Venice IT director outlines aggressive website redesign to meet federal ADA deadline

IT Director Roger Navarro told the Venice Citizens Advisory Board on Dec. 17 that the city will begin a phased redevelopment of its website to meet federal Americans with Disabilities Act requirements due in January 2027 and to improve a dated, hard‑to‑use site.

Navarro laid out an aggressive schedule that starts staff and steering‑committee work in January, includes vendor demos and contracting over several months, and anticipates a summer soft launch. "There are ADA requirements from the federal government that we must meet by January 2027," Navarro said, adding the city would like to be a few months ahead of the legal deadline.

Why it matters: Navarro said the current site is nearly eight years old, difficult for citizens and staff to use, and creates friction that keeps information from being timely. He told the board the site receives roughly "a 100,000 individual users a year, 10,000 a month or so," and that when automated traffic is discounted the figure is closer to "80,000 a year visits." Navarro said the redesign aims to prioritize common user "journeys," improve back‑end content management for staff, and build in future features such as an AI chatbot.

Navarro recommended choosing government‑experienced vendors who both build and host the site rather than using a separate consultant and host. He described a procurement timeline that would identify a small short list of specialized government website vendors, conduct demos, finalize contracting, and complete iterative design reviews (with CAB and staff involvement) ahead of testing and launch. "We're going to … finalize that vendor list in the next week or two and then kick off the project," he said.

Board members asked whether the CAB could serve on the vendor steering committee and whether the vendor would conduct public surveys. Navarro and city staff said staff would manage day‑to‑day contracting and project management but that CAB members would act as the "voice of the customer" and could be liaisons to check in during key milestones. Navarro suggested asking the top vendors early what survey questions they would use so CAB input could be incorporated into vendor scopes rather than duplicated.

Next steps: Navarro said he could share the current scoping draft with the board and that staff would continue content cleanup and vendor work in the coming weeks. Staff and Navarro indicated vendor presentations could occur in the February–March timeframe, with the CAB participating in milestone feedback during the design phase.