The Storm Lake Times: Opinion

Expensive website

The City of Storm Lake is about to spend $24,000 over three years for a company to rebuild the city’s website, www.stormlake.org. The city’s website as it stands is not terrible. It tells you who the city administrator is, what the phone number is, if there is a street emergency, and how to call the police department. It has other stuff, too.

The city council on Monday heard a presentation on hiring a firm from the Kansas City area that specializes in municipal websites. The contract presented to the council calls mainly for graphic services. It says nothing about databases that would facilitate online bill paying or other types of interactivity. If such sophisticated features are included, then it should be spelled out in the contract.

So we come to a few conclusions:

It could be done cheaper.

It could be done locally.

It could be done cheaper locally.

We happen to comment on this topic because we know something about website development. Our website, www.stormlake.com, generates more than 50,000 visits per month from more than 5,000 computer addresses. It is by far the highest-traffic website in Storm Lake.

We put together the website ourselves, thanks to a recent Buena Vista University graduate who was on the staff. All we had to purchase was a basic graphic layout program that included Internet markup protocol. We would do the job for the city for less than $24,000 — a lot, lot, lot less. A bilingual high school or college student could severely underbid us and produce a website functional enough for a proud small Midwestern town.

Before we sign that contract, let’s see who is cheaper. And who is local (Rebnord Technologies, say?). And if the city website is that badly in need of an upgrade.

If the city indeed plans a more sophisticated effort than the contract spells out, including database management for true interactivity, then the contract should be rewritten to reflect the website vendor’s actual responsibilities. Then $24,000 would have been better-spent.

Insurance monopoly

A pleasant and helpful health-insurance saleswoman stopped by the office this week to see if we might switch policies to her company. We were told that our cost was high, our deductibles were high and our co-pays were high. She told us nothing we did not know.

We told her about the ages and health status of our workforce — aging and in some cases chronically infirm through no fault of their own. The saleswoman began to understand why our health insurance costs so much.

“You don’t really want our policy,” we told her.

“I guess I will have to check with my supervisor,” she replied, meaning that there was no way out for us.

That is because of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. He held up a federal health insurance reform effort long enough to put the bill in intensive care. Relief has been delayed at least a year because of Grassley’s single-handed efforts to kill health care reform on the Senate Finance Committee. And it’s not because the bill was that bad, it was because the bill is President Obama’s centerpiece legislation.

Warren Buffett, the legendary Omaha businessman, last weekend described the current system as a “tape-worm” that sucks life from the economy. “If it was a choice today between Plan A, which is what we’ve got, or Plan B, which is the Senate bill, I would vote for the Senate bill,” he said. “But I would much rather see a Plan C that really attacks costs, and I think that’s what the American public wants to see.”

The Plan C to which the Oracle of Omaha refers is the House bill, which includes a public option that helps hold down costs by negotiating rates with providers. It also includes an income tax increase for people in Buffett’s rate category, which he believes is essential. He has complained before that his secretary pays a higher rate in taxes than he does.

Ironically, Grassley — who voted against healthcare reform just two months ago — is now investigating why health insurance premium increases are so high.

President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress intend to push through Plan B or Plan C in coming weeks — with or without the likes of Grassley. God’s speed to them. We hope someday we can invite the cheery health insurance saleswoman to give us her pitch on the public option, that we will be freed from the shackles of what amounts to health insurance monopoly in Iowa.