Marathon County City Of Wausau RFP Final Candidate v3.pdf

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

City of Wausau and Marathon County Website Refresh

PROPOSALS MUST BE RECEIVED

NO LATER THAN 4 P.M., CDT, Friday, October 15, 2021

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE PROJECT MANAGER:

Troy Krezine

CITY-COUNTY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY COMMISSION

407 GRANT STREET

WAUSAU, WI 54403-4783

(715) 261-6700

Request for Proposal Table of Contents

I. Solicitation

II. Desired Outcome and Requirements

III. Instructions for Responding to this RFP IV. Required Contractual Conditions

I. Solicitation

The City-County Information Technology Commission (CCITC), which provides IT services to Marathon

County, the City of Wausau and North Central Health Care, is requesting proposals for new websites for the City of Wausau and Marathon County as well as some connected websites.

CCITC reserves the right to reject, in whole or in part, any and all proposals; to waive any technical deficiencies in the proposals; to accept the proposal and award final contract to the responsible offeror determined to be the most advantageous to CCITC. The contract shall be awarded in accordance with the terms and conditions of the procurement codes for the city and county. This solicitation may be canceled if doing so is determined to be in the best interests of CCITC. Upon award of the contract, all submitted documents become subject to the Open Records Law of the State of Wisconsin.

A. Schedule of Events

i. RFP Released September 16, 2021

ii. Proposal Due Date October 15, 2021

iii. Evaluation Period October 18 – October 29, 2021

iv. Contract Negotiation November 8 – November 22, 2021

v. Contract Signed December 6, 2021

B. Evaluation of Proposals The evaluation of proposals will be based on the following (sequence does not imply importance):

i. 20% Cost up front and costs ongoing

ii. 40% Fit with requirements and environment

iii. 15% Record of performance on similar project

iv. 15% Project approach and proposed schedule

v. 10% Firms economic and technical resources

II. Desired Outcome and Requirements A. Primary purpose

i. Provide the City of Wausau and Marathon County with modern websites and functionality that allows less manual effort to maintain, secure, and is extensible

B. Project Drivers

i. Provide intuitive, easy-to-use interface for content contributors to create/update web content.

ii. Functional, appealing, service-based, and responsive website design that allows easy access from all devices, with a focus on mobile design (phone and tablet).

iii. Leverage newer technologies to improve search, navigation, and self-service such as knowledge base/AI and chatbot functionality.

C. Sponsors and Team

i. Project Executive Sponsors

1. Katie Rosenburg – Mayor, City of Wausau

2. Lance Leonhard – County Administrator

ii. Project Team

1. Troy Krezine – IT Manager

2. Subject Matter Experts at CCITC, the City of Wausau and Marathon County

D. Project Scope Note: Page Counts do not include Admin pages or 'Individual' Announcements or Calendar

Items

i. Sites in scope Marathon County

1. Marathon County (MAR)

a. https://www.co.marathon.wi.us/

b. Current Published site - 744 Pages

c. New Site – 350 pages

d. Storage – 12 GB

2. Website for Marathon County and surrounding counties

a. https://www.imcentralconsortium.org/

b. 39 Pages

c. Storage – 1 GB

3. City County IT (CCD) -

a. https://www.citycountyit.org/

b. 11 Pages

c. Storage – 1 GB

4. Wisconsin Central Time News

a. https://wisconsincentraltimenews.com/

b. 4 Pages (plus articles)?

ii. Sites in scope City of Wausau

1. City of Wausau (WAU) -

a. https://www.ci.wausau.wi.us/

b. 439 Pages

c. Storage 9 GB

2. Wausau Community and Economic Development (CDV)

a. https://www.wausaudevelopment.com/

b. 82 Pages

c. Storage – 1 GB

3. Riverview Terrace (CDV/CGA?)

a. https://www.riverviewterracewi.com/

b. 7 Pages

c. Storage – 1 GB https://www.imcentralconsortium.org/ https://www.citycountyit.org/ https://wisconsincentraltimenews.com/ https://www.ci.wausau.wi.us/ https://www.wausaudevelopment.com/ https://www.riverviewterracewi.com/

E. General Website Requirements for all sites

i. All sites will be rolled into 2 larger sites: one for Marathon County and one for City of Wausau

ii. All specified content from existing sites must be migrated to new sites including historical documentation, agendas, minutes, forms, pictures, video as required by open record laws

1. If contract has limit on what vendor will migrate specify limits and what is included with contract

iii. High Level Features requested

1. Vendor platform should have the following standard features of a modern

CMS (features may be called out in detail below)

a. storing

b. application marketplace

c. indexing

d. custom and supplied content templates

e. search and retrieval

f. format management

g. revision control

h. access control

i. publishing

j. reporting

k. SEO-friendly URLs

l. social media integrations

m. customizable templates to manage content presentation

n. permission-based access control

o. user and group functionality

p. content organization structures, e.g. hierarchy and taxonomy

q. content virtualization

r. versioning, approvals, and workflow management

s. collaboration platform

t. delegation between user groups

u. multilingual support

v. integrated file managers

w. integrated audit logs

x. install and upgrade wizards

y. compliance with website and accessibility standards

z. functionality across several user platforms – including mobile devices and major browsers (Chrome, IE, Safari, Firefox, etc.)

iv. Cloud Hosted / SaaS is required

v. Site design must assist to meet and maintain ADA requirements. - minimum AA grade (Chapter 5 - Website Accessibility Under Title II of the ADA, and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act)

F. Environments

i. Vendor will create at minimum 2 environments for each site (Test/Stage and

Production)

ii. Defined process delivered that allows Stage to Prod and Prod to Stage to ensure environments content and changes can be promoted to production, and if necessary, Stage over-written with Production to ensure Staging is consistent

G. Support for Search Engine Optimization / Analytics

i. Website Analytics: Google analytics must be integrated site wide.

ii. Currently our web site has excellent search rankings; usually leading visitors to our site within the first few results listed. We desire to maintain or surpass our current positions.

iii. The site must be built to be easily crawled by search engines and place a strong emphasis on SEO.

iv. The CMS must include the ability to alter title tags, keywords, meta descriptions, alt tags, and headers.

H. Calendar Support

i. Calendaring system that provides for multiple individual calendars that can also be rolled up into one calendar or stand alone

ii. Calendars should have options for different views

iii. Focus on ease of use for users

iv. Ability to access meeting packets, meeting links and associated data for calendar events

v. Ability to download ICS for import into personal calendar

I. Editing

i. Provide necessary templates to allow content contributors to easily create the various content types required for the site

ii. Ability to version content and revert to prior versions

iii. Ability to stage and expire content by date and time

iv. Site Administrators have the ability to add new pages and add to website navigation while maintaining ADA compliance and maintain consistency

v. Editing of content should be controllable to ensure ADA compliance

vi. Automated expiration of content and notifications on removal

J. Email And Communications Management

i. Website should provide visitor with the ability to subscribe and unsubscribe to a variety of opt-in email lists, such as email newsletters, announcement lists, or discussion groups.

ii. Ability to integrate lists with marketing services such as Constant Contact or

MailChimp

1. If support for 3rd party marketing services is not included, vendor will break out costs associated with the services offered

2. Vendor will post all pricing for different tiers of usage for email and SMS outgoing communications

iii. Ability to subscribe via SMS and Email to any committee, council, board or task force so that subscribers receive notice of meetings, changes to meetings, Agendas, Packets, minutes, and Webex and video streams as they are posted

iv. Ability to send out email blasts to distribution list.

v. Ability to integrate with Everbridge for alerts

vi. Ability to easily post emergency notices to the homepage (global banner to all child pages)

1. Needs to be quick and easy

2. Mobile enabled

K. Images and Video

i. Centralized image and photo libraries for managing website assets

ii. Support for Youtube iFrame to show our videos on the site without hosting content

iii. The ability to have the system automatically resize images and photos into web-friendly sizes -- Preferably during the upload process.

iv. The ability to create thumbnail images of photos and images automatically without using its full size.

v. The ability to create photo albums/galleries that can be embedded into webpages.

vi. Provide the ability to attach captions to photos.

L. Integrations

i. Where applicable integrate with Workday ERP or provide links to Workday portal for services engagements

ii. Ability to integrate with Laserfiche Forms via SDK or API

iii. Integrate with Taleo (Job Posting)

iv. Integrate with Point and Pay payment systems for purchasing permits, maps and marketing items

v. Ability to embed other sites/applications into the website (iFrame).

vi. Restful or SOAP API in JSON preferred or XML formats

vii. Allow access to other sites hosted in our data center or online without leaving City or County site to provide seamless browsing experience to users

1. https://ascent.co.marathon.wi.us/AscentLandRecords/PropertyListing/RealE stateTaxParcel#/Search

2. https://maps.co.marathon.wi.us/Html5Viewer/index.html?viewer=ExternalMa psNew

3. https://secure.rec1.com/WI/marathon-county-parks-recreation-and-forestry/catalog

M. Language Support

i. Sites should allow for multiple language translations (Google Translate)

N. Adaptable custom form workflows

i. Custom forms can be created on site https://ascent.co.marathon.wi.us/AscentLandRecords/PropertyListing/RealEstateTaxParcel#/Search https://ascent.co.marathon.wi.us/AscentLandRecords/PropertyListing/RealEstateTaxParcel#/Search https://maps.co.marathon.wi.us/Html5Viewer/index.html?viewer=ExternalMapsNew https://maps.co.marathon.wi.us/Html5Viewer/index.html?viewer=ExternalMapsNew https://secure.rec1.com/WI/marathon-county-parks-recreation-and-forestry/catalog https://secure.rec1.com/WI/marathon-county-parks-recreation-and-forestry/catalog

ii. Input from forms should be available to start other processes or notifications to departments (API integrations)

O. Forms

i. Provide the ability to create data entry forms that send email notifications or API puts/gets

ii. Provide the ability to create data entry forms that update an internal database

iii. Provide the capability of creating online surveys

iv. Provide the ability to process payments tied to forms. Several payment gateways are in use and changes with Workday ERP will be implemented

v. Provide workflow engine to route forms for approvals

vi. Provide reporting on forms submissions with security so that only staff in the department using specific forms see reports on their form submissions.

P. Security

i. Single Sign-On connecting to existing Azure Active Directory (SAML)

ii. Two-Factor Authentication

iii. Multi-tiered security to allow for different roles and responsibilities among users down to individual content sections to ensure content can only be changed by authorized users

iv. Sites will need to comply to all security standards including but not limited to

HIPAA, PII, PCI, CJIS

v. If encryption at rest is available for data types that require, please note that in RFP response

Q. Search, Virtual Assistants, Knowledge Base

i. Chatbot/Virtual Assistance

ii. Embedded Knowledge base

iii. AI for improving navigation and self-service

iv. Search engine that stays within the boundaries of the site and approved embedded sites to ensure results do not re-direct

R. Training

i. The proposal must include the billable rate and an estimate of the time necessary to train content editors

ii. If training is included, please disclose all included training

S. Support and included updates

i. Annual maintenance fees must be disclosed and include:

1. Costs of storage provided and limits under plan tier.

2. Annual hosting fees. If tiered, description of costs for each.

3. Design refreshes included. If any, typical interval implemented.

4. Costs associated with maintaining security and compliance.

5. Billable hourly rate for support over agreed implementation costs.

6. Description of what work is billable and what is under support.

T. Retention

i. Documents on site must be retained under applicable laws and regulations ( 7 years for meeting, agenda, minutes and packets)

ii. Vendor should have a mechanism for removing content based upon date and other rules, or process that reports on content that has expired

U. Support SLAs and Uptime agreements

i. State what your uptime SLA is.

ii. State what your RTO and RPO are for hosted sites.

iii. State SLAs for responding to support issue/tickets. If based upon severity, please include each severity level and corresponding SLAs.

iv. State what your standard support business hours are.

v. State what after business hours support options are and if there are additional costs.

vi. Please describe maintenance downtime, length, and typical frequency of these activities (monthly, quarterly etc.).

V. Back-ups

i. Vendor should exhibit the ability to be highly available and sites recoverable

W. Disaster Recovery

i. Describe your proposed DR approach.

X. Systems Architecture

i. Vendor Supplied – Not in scope

Y. Documentation The offeror shall provide user documentation including, but not limited to:

i. Detailed system training manuals which thoroughly explain setup, use and maintenance of the system.

ii. If on-premise only: Installation instructions for all software components, including client computers, network servers, peripheral devices, instrumentation, databases and any other contractor supplied utilities or existing customer assets which are required for the solution

Z. Warranty The contractor must provide a one (1) year warranty period which will begin when the system is accepted by CCITC. The contractor shall warrant all software provided to be free of defects during this one-year period. Any repairs or “bug fixes” required during this period will be made at no expense to customer.

AA. Project Management The proposal should include what your experience has shown to be a realistic delivery and implementation schedule. The schedule should not be dated but should break out the implementation schedule in terms of weeks following contract signing. The schedule should show periods of performance and milestones for deliverables. Tasks to be performed by you, as well as by CCITC, should be specifically stated and included in the schedule.

BB. Contract Terms and Conditions Standard contract terms as outlined in Exhibit A shall be incorporated into the final agreement between CCITC and Requestor, if those terms are applicable.

III. Instructions for Responding to this RFP

A. Executive Overview Provide a synopsis of the proposal. The synopsis shall contain a brief statement of the features of the proposal. It should include an overall cost summary and general recommendations and conclusions.

B. Main Content

Detailed explanation of solution including how each requirement will be met.

C. Costs

D. Corporate Data

Furnish a detailed background of your company’s experience providing these services.

Finalists may be required to furnish the company’s most recent annual report and the last two years annual financial statements for proof of financial solvency.

E. Contact Person Provide the name and phone number of the person to whom the CCITC staff should address questions about the proposal.

F. References

i. Provide at least three (3) customer references with whom you have contracted or for whom you have performed similar services. If similar services were performed in Wisconsin, identify other projects by your firm or third parties that have not been specifically addressed elsewhere in your proposal.

G. Responsibility

i. It is the responsibility of all proposers to carefully read the entire Request for

Proposal (RFP) which contains provisions applicable to successful submission and completion of a proposal. If you discover any ambiguity, inconsistency, or error in the RFP, you must notify Troy Krezine, City-County Information Technology

Commission, 407 Grant Street, Wausau, WI, 54403-4783 in writing. Only interpretations or corrections of the RFP made in writing by the CCITC are binding.

You shall not rely on interpretations or corrections made in any other way. All requests for interpretations or corrections must be received by the CCITC no later than ten days prior to the deadline for submitting proposals. Request for interpretations and responses will be sent to all vendors obtaining the proposal documents.

H. Submission of Proposals

i. An electronic copy of all proposal materials should be included on a Thumb Drive.

ii. RFP responses will be required to have separate responses and estimates for the

City of Wausau websites, and a separate response and estimates for Marathon

County Websites

1. Each entity must be treated separately for all responses related to this RFP

iii. The proposal must be received by the CCITC by 4:00 p.m. CDT on Friday October

15, 2021. Actual receipt is required by that time. Deposit in the mail is not sufficient. Submittals by FAX or E-Mail are not acceptable and will be rejected.

It must be addressed to:

Troy Krezine - Project Manager

Troy.Krezine@co.marathon.wi.us

Project Title: City County Vendor Website Redesign

City-County Information Technology Commission

407 Grant Street

Wausau, WI 54403-4783

(715) 261-6718

iv. The following notation must appear in the lower left-hand corner of the envelope or other container: City/County Website Redesign.

I. Liability for Response Development CCITC is not liable for any costs incurred in responding to this RFP or in any presentation.

J. Restrictions of Proposals Any restrictions on the use of the information in the proposal based upon confidentiality of information, proprietary interests, trade secrets, copyrighted information, or similar basis shall be clearly stated in the proposal. All proposals become the property of CCITC. This

Request for Proposal is governed by the public records laws of the State of Wisconsin. All responses become public record upon award of the contract. If confidentiality is claimed by the proposer, the CCITC will notify the proposer of any request for such documents and shall defend non-disclosure of the documents as allowed by law. The proposer shall cooperate with CCITC in any such defense and agrees to indemnify and hold CCITC harmless for any costs of such defense.

K. Costs Respondents must provide itemized and total costs of proposed services.

i. Itemized costs should include but not be limited to:

1. Software license

2. Site configuration

3. Data conversion

4. Training

5. Annual Support/Maintenance

6. Customizations

7. Travel - if applicable

ii. Vendor should itemize pricing for individual modules that may or may not be selected

L. RFP Exceptions

Requestor shall include a specific and clear section titled RFP Exceptions that shall identify each and every item in the RFP to which Requestor is not able to meet in total or in part.

Exhibit A - Required Contractual Conditions

The contractual terms and conditions outlined below shall be included in any agreement between

CCITC and Offeror unless CCITC determines that a specific term and condition is not applicable.

1. Separate contracts will be provided for the City Of Wausau, WI, and for Marathon County, WI

2. Offeror shall provide to CCITC copies of any proposed contracts and agreements.

3. Each contract will state clearly that the RFP and the vendor’s RFP response are all included as part of the agreement.

4. Each contract shall be governed by the laws of the State of Wisconsin.

5. All products generated as a result of this RFP and resulting contract shall become the sole property of Marathon County, City of Wausau and CCITC

6. The successful offeror shall not assign any part of its interest in any resulting agreement without the prior written consent of CCITC. Any assignment of the contract or of a subsequent service agreement must allow for Marathon County, City of Wausau, and CCITC to terminate the agreement within 90 days of assignment with no penalties to Marathon County, the City of

Wausau, and CCITC.

7. Software maintenance increases shall be limited to no more than CPI+1% over the previous year.

8. There will be performance penalties agreed to during contract negotiations which will penalize the vendor if milestones are not met on time or scope. If offeror cannot agree in principle now to these penalties, this must be clearly identified in the RFP exceptions section of offeror’s response.

9. Any license granted pursuant to this RFP and subsequent agreement must allow and include a license to use and the costs to set up a test environment

10. The resulting contract shall define a Final Acceptance date the date after go-live by which all critical and significant issues are to be resolved.

11. Any software maintenance shall have the first year included.

12. Software maintenance starts at Final Acceptance – not installation or the go-live dates.

13. The successful offeror will specify in the contract that the product will be sold and supported for at least 3 years from purchase

14. PCI Compliance – If the solution offers credit card payments, or partners with third party for credit card payments – explain your PCI security practices, provide the most recent audit showing PCI compliance and identify your method to have your environment certified annually.

15. The contract will specify that CCITC will be provided all of our data in a csv format at no cost within 5 business days of us requesting it when the contract is terminated, plus at least once annually (so that the export is tested annually). If applicable, photos will be in jpg format, videos in mp4 format, and audio in an industry standard format (not AAC).

16. The contract will specify that we will be notified of any information breach in the vendor’s network within 48 hours, regardless if it is on our servers or on other customers’.

17. Incurred Expenses: There shall be no express or implied obligation for the CCITC to reimburse

Respondents for any costs or expenses incurred in preparing Proposals in response to this

RFP, and the CCITC will not reimburse Respondents for these costs or expenses, nor will the

CCITC pay any subsequent costs associated with the provision of any additional information or presentations, or to procure a contract for these Services. The CCITC is not responsible for any cost(s) incurred by a Respondent in preparing and/or submitting a Proposal in response to this RFP. The CCITC will also not be responsible for any costs associated with preparing and/or participating in any systems demonstrations requested of the Respondent’s products and Services.

18. Ownership of Data and Transition: Any and all CCITC, City, and County data stored on the

Contractor’s servers or within the Contractors custody, is the sole property of the CCITC, City, and County. The Contractor, subcontractor(s), officers, agents, and assigns shall not make use of, disclose, sell, copy, or reproduce the CCITC, City, and County data in any manner, or provide to any entity or person outside of the CCITC, City, and County without the express written authorization of the CCITC, City, and County.

19. The contract will specify that the solution will have a security audit annually and that the report will be provided to CCITC within 1 month of receipt at no charge. The report will also include the vendor’s plans and schedule to mitigate any issues identified. The vendor will keep us informed of the resolution of the identified risks at least every month until resolved.

20. Billing procedures and effective terms will be mutually arranged upon acceptance of the proposal of the successful offeror.

21. The payment structure will be no more than 20% of the license up front. The Respondent is encouraged to suggest relevant milestones and partial payment amounts in its proposal.

CCITC will withhold retainage from each milestone, with final payment of 30% being made upon Final Acceptance of the system by CCITC.

22. Taxes: CCITC, Marathon County, and City of Wausau, and their respective departments ,are exempt from payment of all federal tax and Wisconsin state and local taxes on its purchases except Wisconsin excise taxes.

23. Insurance Requirements: Offeror shall not commence work under any agreement until all insurance required is obtained, , nor shall offeror allow any subcontractor to commence work on their subcontract until all similar insurance requirements have been obtained and approved.

a. Offeror shall maintain worker's compensation insurance as required by Wisconsin

Statutes, for all employees engaged in the work. In case any work is sublet, offeror shall require the subcontractor similarly to provide statutory Workers' Compensation

Insurance for all of the latter's employees, unless such employees are covered by the protection afforded by offeror.

b. General Liability, Professional Liability and Property Damage Insurance. Offeror_ shall secure and maintain in force throughout the duration of this contract such General

Liability, Professional Liability (if necessary) and Property Damage Insurance as shall protect itself and any subcontractor performing work covered by this contract from claims for damages for personal injuries including accidental death, as well as from claims for property damage, which may arise from operations under this contract, whether such operations be by offeror, or by any subcontractor or by anyone directly or indirectly employed by either of them; and the amount of such insurance shall be as follows:

• Comprehensive General Liability $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 in aggregate for bodily injury and Property Damage.

• Professional Liability Coverage, $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 in aggregate.

• Automobile Liability $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 in aggregate for bodily injury and property damage.

• Excess Liability Coverage, $1,000,000 over the General Liability and Automobile Liability Coverage.

c. CCITC reserves the right to require higher or lower limits where warranted.

d. Proof of Insurance: Offeror shall furnish the County with a Certificate of Insurance countersigned by a Wisconsin Resident Agent or Authorized Representative of the insurer indicating that Offeror meets the insurance requirements identified above. The Certificates of Insurance shall include a provision prohibiting cancellation of said policies except upon 30 days prior written notice to the County and specify the name of the contract or project covered. The Certificate of Insurance shall be delivered to the Authorized Purchasing Agent, with a copy of the Certificate of Insurance to be delivered to the Marathon County Risk Manager for approval prior to the execution of any resulting contract. Upon renewal of the required insurance, and annually thereafter, the County shall receive a new Certificate of Insurance for three years after completion of the project. The Certificates shall name Marathon County as an additional insured and describe the contract by name and or identification number in the "Description of Operations" section of the form.

24. Cancellation/Termination: CCITC shall reserve the right to:

a. Nonappropriation of Funds: Cancel any contract in whole or in part without penalty due to nonappropriation of funds or for failure of the contractor to comply with terms, conditions, and specifications of this contract.

b. Terminate this contract, for CCITC’s convenience, at any time by a notice in writing from CCITC to offeror by certified mail. If the Contract is terminated by CCITC as provided herein, offeror shall be paid an amount which bears the same ratio to the total compensation as the services actually performed bear to the total services of offeror covered by this Contract, unless payments of compensation have previously been made.

25. Contract Modifications: The scope of the services to be performed under any resulting Contract may be amended or supplemented by mutual written agreement between the parties to the Contract. This amendatory provision shall not operate to prevent CCITC from exercising its reserved right to establish reasonable time schedules for any of the work or services to be performed by or deliveries to be received from offeror hereunder. Furthermore, this amendatory provision shall not operate to prevent CCITC from canceling any of the services not yet performed or any deliveries no yet made at the time notice is given to offeror of the cancellation of such services or portion of the work to be performed hereunder.

26. Patent Infringement: Offeror shall guarantee any articles provided were manufactured or produced in accordance with applicable federal labor laws. Further, that the sale or use of the articles described herein shall not infringe any United States patent. The contractor covenants that it will at its own expense defend every suit which shall be brought against CCITC (provided that such contractor is promptly notified of such suit, and all papers therein are delivered to it) for any alleged infringement of any patent by reason of the sale or use of such articles, and agrees that it will pay all costs, damages, and profits recoverable in any such suit.

27. Public Records Access: CCITC, Marathon County, and the City of Wausau are subject to the Wisconsin Public Records Law. It is the policy of these entities to maintain an open and public process in the solicitation, submission, review, and approval of procurement activities.

Evaluations of responses to requests for proposals are subject to further discussion, clarification and negotiation. Records of responses to requests for proposal will not be available for public inspection prior to issuance of the award of the contract.

28. Proprietary Information: Any restrictions on the use of data contained within a response to request, must be clearly stated in the bid/proposal itself. Proprietary information submitted in response to a request will be handled in accordance with the Wisconsin Public Records Law.

Proprietary restrictions normally are not accepted. However, when accepted, it is offeror's responsibility to defend the determination in the event of an appeal or litigation.

a. Data contained in a proposal, all documentation provided therein, and innovations developed as a result of the contracted commodities or services cannot be copyrighted or patented. All data, documentation, and innovations become the property of CCITC.

b. Any material submitted by offeror in response to CCITC’s request that the vendor considers confidential and proprietary information and which qualifies as a trade secret, as provided in s. 19.36(5), Wis. Stats., or material which can be kept confidential under the Wisconsin Public Records Law, must be identified and include citation to the specific provisions of law that preclude disclosure and any factual or background information necessary to establish that the identified provisions of the law apply to that particular information. Proposal prices cannot, under any circumstances, be held confidential.

c. In the event CCITC becomes involved in litigation due to offeror’s refusal of permission to release information identified as confidential or proprietary, Offeror agrees to indemnify, defend and hold harmless CCITC for any costs associated with said litigation.

29. Confidentiality of Data: In the event work conducted under this contract requires offeror to have access to CCITC’s databases via Internet, direct contact or other connection to allow the provision of installation, support and maintenance services, offeror agrees to keep all such data confidential and to execute any reasonable agreement to assure CCITC that offeror will comply with all state and federal confidentiality laws and/or regulations. These restrictions herein shall survive the termination of this contract, regardless of the reason for termination, and shall continue in full force and effect and shall be binding upon offeror or its agents, employees, successors, assigns or subcontractors. offeror shall defend and incur all costs, if any, for actions that arise as a result of noncompliance by offeror, its agents, employees, successors, assigns and subcontractors regarding the confidentiality restrictions herein.

30. Promotional Advertising/News Releases: Reference to or use of CCITC, the City of Wausau, Marathon County, any of their departments, agencies or other subunits, or any county official or employee for commercial promotion is prohibited. News releases pertaining to this procurement shall not be made without prior approval of CCITC. Release of broadcast e-mails pertaining to this procurement shall not be made without prior written authorization.

31. Mutual Hold Harmless/Indemnification: Offeror shall agree to release, indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Marathon County, the City of Wausau, and CCITC, its officials, officers, employees and agents from and against all judgments, damages, penalties, losses, costs, claims, expenses, suits, demands, debts, actions and/or causes of action of any type or nature whatsoever, including actual and reasonable attorney's fees, which may be sustained or to which they may be exposed, directly or indirectly, by reason of personal injury, death, property damage, or other liability, alleged or proven, which is determined to be caused by the negligent or intentional acts or omissions of Offeror’s officers, officials, employees, agents or assigns.

32. Force Majeure: Neither party shall be in default by reason of any failure in performance of this Agreement in accordance with reasonable control and without fault or negligence on their part.

Such causes may include, but are not restricted to, acts of nature or the public enemy, acts of the government in either its sovereign or contractual capacity, fires, floods, epidemics, quarantine restrictions, strikes, freight embargoes and unusually severe weather, but in every case the failure to perform such must be beyond the reasonable control and without the fault or negligence of the party.

33. Gratuities and Kickbacks: It shall be unethical for any person to offer, give, or agree to give any elected official, employee or former employee, or for any elected official, employee or former employee to solicit, demand, accept, or agree to accept from another person, a gratuity or an offer for employment in connection with any decision, approval, disapproval, recommendation, preparation or any part of a program requirement or a purchase request, influencing the contents of any specification or procurement standard, rendering of advice, investigation, auditing, or in any other advisory capacity in any proceedings or application, request for ruling, determination, claim or controversy, or other particular matter, pertaining to any program requirement or a contract or subcontract, or to any solicitation or proposal therefore.

It shall be unethical for any payment, gratuity, or offer of employment to be made by or on behalf of a subcontractor under a contract to the prime contractor or a higher tier subcontractor or any person associated therewith, as an inducement for the award of a subcontract, or order.

34. Dispute Resolution: If a dispute related to this agreement arises, all parties shall attempt to resolve the dispute through direct discussions and negotiations. If the dispute cannot be resolved by the parties, and if all parties agree, it may be submitted to either mediation or arbitration. If the matter is arbitrated, the procedures of Chapter 788 of the Wisconsin Statutes or any successor statute shall be followed. If the parties cannot agree to either mediation or arbitration, any party may commence an action in court as set forth above. If a lawsuit is commenced, the parties agree that the dispute shall be submitted to alternate dispute resolution pursuant to §802.12, Wis. Stats., or any successor statute.

Unless otherwise provided in this contract, the parties shall continue to perform according to the terms and conditions of the contract during the pendency of any litigation or other dispute resolution proceeding.

35. Independent Contractor Status: The parties hereto agree that Contractor, its officers, agents and employees, in the performance of this Contract, shall act in the capacity of an independent contractor and not as an officer, employee or agent of Marathon County. The Contractor shall not be entitled to any of the rights, benefits, salaries, wages or fringe benefits which employees of CCITC, the City of Wausau, or Marathon County are eligible to receive.

No federal, state, or local taxes or social security deductions or contributions shall be made by CCITC on behalf of the Contractor. Neither Marathon County nor Contractor will represent itself as the agent or legal representative of the other or as partner or joint venturers for any purpose whatsoever, and neither shall have any right to create or assume any obligation of any kind, express or implied, for or on behalf of the other in any way whatsoever.

Furthermore, Contractor agrees to take such steps as are necessary to ensure that each of its subcontractors, if any, will not be considered to be an agent, servant, joint venturer with, or partner of, CCITC.

36. Non-Debarment Clause: Offeror hereby certifies that neither it nor any of its principal officers or officials has ever been suspended or debarred, for any reason whatsoever, from doing business or entering into contractual relationships with any governmental entity. Offeror further agrees and certifies that this clause shall be included in any subcontract of this contract. CCITC also reserves the right to cancel this contract with any federally debarred contractor or a contractor that is presently identified on the list of parties excluded from federal or State of Wisconsin procurement and non-procurement contracts.

37. Statement of Compliance: Offeror will agree that it has carefully reviewed CCITC's required contract language, as set forth in the Request for Proposal pertaining to termination of contract, change orders, gratuities and kickbacks, non-appropriation of funds, hold harmless/indemnification, insurance requirements/proof of insurance, dispute resolutions, and non-debarment, and is in full compliance with all statements and requirements.

38. Waiver/Severability: No waiver of any default shall be deemed as a waiver of any prior or subsequent default of the same or other provisions of this contract. If any provision of this contract is held invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction, such invalidity shall not affect the validity or operation of any other provision and said provision shall continue to apply to the extent allowed by said court or, if not so allowed, be deemed severed from this contract entirely.

39. Response to Open Record requests during the RFP process - Sec. 3.05(2)(d), of the Marathon County Procurement Code, provides that: “No proposal shall be handled so as to permit disclosure of the contents of any proposal to any competing offerors during the process of negotiation. “Upon completion of contract negotiations, the contents of proposals, ranking tabulations of proposals and the register of proposals, kept by the county’s purchasing agent, shall be made available for inspection upon request. In accordance with sec. 3.05(2)(f), Procurement Code, Marathon County reserves the right to commence negotiations with one or more offerors whose proposals it deems to be most advantageous to the county. Only the identity of those offerors shall be subject to disclosure to competing offerors prior to completion of negotiations. However, Marathon County reserves the right to negotiate with any offeror at any time within the time specified for the validity of offers or proposals.