Economic development head discusses website bids, logo with commission

By Charlene Sims, info@linncountyjournal.com

MOUND CITY – During her report late last month Linn County Economic Development Director Chasity Ware presented the bids for the county website and discussed making a new logo for the county.

The bids for the website presented at the April 28 meeting were from Mound City-based Redlogic with fixed package price for website design of $22,860 and CivicPlus for the total initial investment of slightly over $26,000 with annual recurring services cost of about $5,900.

Ware said that she wanted to share a couple of things after working with both of these companies diligently.

Linn County Commissioner Alison Hamilton and county Economic Development director are pushing for revisiting the symbol above as the county logo. That logo, which alludes to the county's Civil War history as well as the abundant sugar maples that dot the landscape, has been used on county vehicles for nearly a quarter of a century. (https://www.linncountyks.com/)

She told the commissioners with Redlogic the county would own the website and hourly rates would be charged for additional help. She said that CivicPlus will be owned by CivicPlus. She said the annual fee of about $5,900 would include any updates that need to take place. CivicPlus will give the county, Ware believes, two three-hour sessions or maybe its six two-hours. Ware said she wasn’t exactly sure.

She pointed out that the difference between the two companies is that Redlogic is not a government-based company that really works with a ton of governments. They  do a couple of government websites while CivicPlus’ entire focus is working with government entities. So they know the legal aspects of things, they are up to date with all of that.

Commissioner Jason Hightower said that he would say for Ware to take these, put them together and bring a recommendation.

Ware will compare and qualify these bids to bring back to the May 12 meeting.

Next, Ware said that she was looking for an adopted logo, font and color scheme for the county of Linn County. She said that she and County Clerk Danielle Souza had spent countless time looking for this and she had even checked with Information Technology Director Chris Martin about it.

“Are any of you aware of one (logo)?” asked Ware. “Danielle’s gone clear back to 1997 said that nothing has been officially adopted.”

However, in the minutes of the April 7, 1997, meeting, the board of county commissioners by consensus approved letting the Linn County News use the Linn County logo as part of its masthead. A variation of the county’s logo with the county’s name over the outline of a sugar maple leaf and a sword has been used on county vehicles for more than two decades and has been prominently displayed on county letterhead and now its website for a number of years.

When it was adopted, whether officially or not, the process included gathering community input on various designs, and the logo at the top of this story received the most support.

Ware continued, “In order to do what I feel like needs to be done that any sign that goes up on our county signs, anything that’s posted on our Facebook pages, on our website, wherever the case may be is, I feel like we need to have an official adopted logo, font and color scheme.” 

She said, “The ones that I have seen, there’s like seven I think that Chris shared with me. And don’t quote me on that exactly, but I know that I have numerous, just different things are different. The red’s a different shade, the sword’s moved over a little bit, the font’s a hair different, whatever the case may be.”

“How would you like for me to move forward in trying to come up with something that we can adopt?” asked Ware.

Commissioner Alison Hamilton said, “That is something that I would have assumed would have already happened prior to me being in here that we would have adopted a logo. So, if that hasn’t happened absolutely. I think it needs to be reviewed. We need to purchase the font package and we need to purchase the Pantone colors motioned and voted on. Because moving forward, I’ve seen trucks in this county, different colors, they’re different shapes.”

Hamilton continued,  “I agree and also with you working with the historical society. I’ve talked to my sister about it a lot. We’ve got to come up with some sort of fluent. It’s got to be cohesive.”

“I would personally like to see that anything that we post on Facebook, that’s one way of being able to say this is literally from us is by having our official logo,” said Ware.

Hamilton said she was actually in favor of looking into updating the logo personally.

Ware asked the other commissioners, “Anything from you two?”

Commissioner Jason Hightower said, “So, what kind of changes do you want to see in place?”

Hamilton said, “I think it needs to not be the commissioners. I think it needs to be an actual company that we’re working with and we’re moving forward with, different font packages and different logos for the county and how we’re going to put that into the website. I think Chasity should lead it.”

“So may I reach out to a couple of graphic designers to ask them to work with us in regards to a couple of things regarding that at least to get us started?” asked Ware.

“Sounds good to me,” said Hightower.

“Okay, I’m good with that,” said Commission Chair Jim Johnson.

Hamilton told Ware to come back with the cost and they commission could discuss it further.

“Also, with the historical society, I don’t know if you need to include that as well, because I know that you had asked for some feedback,” Hamilton said.

“So, what we realized, and came to a conclusion with, is the historical societies technically are their own entities,” Ware said. “They are not owned by us. We ‘sponsor’ them by providing money to them.”

“(They) have decided they would not be OK with saying we as commissioners or you as commissioners are requiring our logo,” Ware continued. “However, there is a logo thing over there on the Gordon Parks courthouse – whatever you call it – that has, I believe, a Linn County QR code or something that says that. And it says it was sponsored by or supported by, and they are willing to do something like that if they can use those terms. So I think that’s a little bit down the road prior to making those decisions.”

Hamilton asked if Ware needed assistance with the font package for the historical societies.

Hamilton said, “I don’t want the logo to be purple and then over here it is red.”

Hamilton then added, “All the mile markers or different historical sites that we have. New signage needed to be replaced. We need to figure out that color scheme too.”