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Technology committee recommends Selectron texting tool to council with one‑year opt‑out
Summary
After a Selectron demo of SelectText, the Technology Committee voted to recommend the five‑year contract to council provided the agreement allows a one‑year opt‑out; members cited staff‑time savings but raised concerns about adoption and pricing.
The Technology Committee reviewed a demo of Selectron Technologies’ SelectText inspection‑scheduling product and voted to recommend that the City Council approve the Selectron contract contingent on negotiating a one‑year opt‑out clause. Bruce (speaker 9), the development department analyst, introduced the demo; Tyler Lloyd (speaker 10), Selectron’s director of business development, and Stan Reichert (speaker 15) demonstrated the texting flow integrated with the town’s TrackIt system.
Staff reported about 2,776 inspections to date and said the eTracking system had scheduled roughly 1,312 of those inspections. Staff estimated approximately 218 staff hours are associated with handling the remaining phone scheduling workload and used a fully burdened hourly rate of about $300 to calculate roughly $65,000 in staff time equivalents. Tyler told the committee that SelectText’s pricing is structured so a five‑year commitment unlocks discounts and that the product’s break‑even point is roughly 18–24 months.
Committee members pressed on user experience (citizen vs. contractor), security/provenance of SMS links, calendar 'add' functionality in confirmation messages, and whether a trial or a phased approach was possible. Vendor said they generally do not offer short trials because of upfront implementation investment but said they would take opt‑out questions back to management. Committee members proposed an opt‑out after one year as a condition to recommend the contract to council.
The committee made a motion recommending that the council include an opt‑out after one year in the Selectron contract; the motion was seconded and approved by voice vote. One committee member said they would not vote for the opt‑out instruction to staff, but the committee as a whole approved forwarding the recommendation to council. Committee members asked staff to seek a written cost for an opt‑out scenario and to negotiate the contract terms (examples discussed included different price points for three‑year vs five‑year terms and potential early‑termination payments).
The vendor said implementation typically takes about 60 days and agreed to provide marketing assets (QR banners, permit‑center banners) to drive adoption; staff will include the committee’s recommended opt‑out language when bringing a formal contract to council.
