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Residents flag data‑portability and price escalation as council adopts Central Square permitting contract on consent calendar
Summary
As the council adopted most consent items, residents urged more scrutiny of a five‑year permitting contract with Central Square: commenters flagged a 5% annual price escalator and data‑return language that could lock the city into proprietary formats; IT staff replied that upgrades and cloud migration are included and that 5–10% escalators are common industry practice.
The City Council approved the consent calendar items on a unanimous voice vote after public testimony. During oral communications, resident Michael McDougal urged the council to approve the Central Square permitting contract on the consent calendar but raised two specific concerns: a 5% annual price escalator and a data‑return clause (Section 15.5) that would return the city’s data in Central Square’s proprietary format and potentially impede future migration.
McDougal told the council the contract is roughly $350,000 over five years and described the city’s “lock‑in” risk if data are not returned in usable formats. “The first one is there’s a price escalator … 5% a year … and 5% a year is a lot,” he said. He also said the vendor’s data‑return provision could increase future migration costs.
In response, IT Manager Eric Ng (speaker 17) told council the city has upgraded to a cloud‑hosted version and that the new maintenance and support contract would operate on the latest version. Ng said the price escalator “is pretty much across the board for all major software company[ies],” and that 5–10% typical increases reflect industry practice for enterprise software.
The consent calendar motion (items other than those pulled for separate consideration) was moved by Councilmember Motoyama and seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Salzman and carried unanimously. Councilmembers asked staff to follow up on the procurement‑policy review and consider data‑portability language during future negotiations and policy updates.
What to watch: staff said they will include procurement‑policy review and negotiation of data‑return/migration terms in future contract work and in any task‑force or policy updates.
