OUR PLACE
The City of Lake Geneva is still on the hunt for a new city administrator.
While everyone in the city waits to fill that position with a worthy candidate, David De Angelis is doing a great job. David De Angelis is a great interim administrator with well-honed communication skills who keeps the city council and city workers well-informed. The past search for a trio of qualified candidates ended in a mess of rather disorganized failure. One of the three was discovered to be unqualified by checking the background, another took a job in another municipality while the final selection process was going on and then the third decided he wanted about double what the city was offering for the position (which was a generous six-figure offer, by the way).
This interim administrator, David De Angelis, has had the challenge of dealing with the short-term rental issues that continue to plague the community.
At the last city council meeting a vote was taken on the issue of the purchase of the software to help monitor the short-term rentals in the city. This has been a tedious drawn-out process, but Angelis has kept track of what has been happening even writing a memo for city officials on the process. RFPs went out in September and the next several months were spent going over the information and reviewing to ensure the proposals met the city’s needs.
Deckard Technologies was selected, as it presented the most cost-effective and the most responsive of the vendor-provided plans reviewed. The city has worked with Deckard on reviewing its modules and tweaking them to fit the city’s needs. The base services start at $9,500 annually which covers the annual licensing portal and annual software subscription. Additional subscriptions were selected, including an outreach campaign at $2,500, a tax collection portal costing $5,000, an online complaint form at $2,000, a 24/7 live hotline for $1,500, and a public-facing portal at $5,000.
After city officials reviewed all the modules, they all agreed that this program meets all the city’s needs and the total cost came in at $25,500, which is way under budget. The interim city administrator recommended that the city council approve the contract with Deckard Technologies so the implementation of the program can be accomplished for the 2025 tourist season. The city council agreed and voted in favor, so it’s official, the City of Lake Geneva is going to be covered and ready.
