Grand Traverse County commissioners this week approved a $96,500 contract with Traverse City-based advertising agency Novum Productions to overhaul the county’s website – which the firm said was outdated, difficult for residents to navigate, and contains numerous broken links and pages that are never visited – and to help the county with strategic marketing efforts. Commissioners also left two seats vacant on the county’s Board of Canvassers after they questioned both the timing of the appointments and the candidates put forward, several of whom Clerk Bonnie Scheele said were “quite vocal” about distrusting Michigan elections.

Web & Marketing Contract
Traverse City advertising firm Novum Productions, which has worked with brands like the National Cherry Festival, Hagerty, United Way, and Delta, can now count Grand Traverse County among its clients.

County commissioners approved a $96,500 year-long contract with Novum Productions to conduct a UX audit – which is a usability analysis intended to identify problems or issues in a digital product – on Grand Traverse County’s website, as well as to implement needed changes flagged by the audit. According to Novum Productions, the county’s website has more than 4,000 pages, but only a third of those are ever accessed by users on a monthly basis. Novum Productions will identify needed and unneeded pages, combine and/or remove pages, fix broken links, update content, and streamline the site navigation.

“Your website is hard to navigate,” said Novum Productions owner Cat Muncey, adding it’s “remarkable how many dead ends, dead links” exist on the site now. “It’s hard to find the information you want to find on it...residents deserve a better tool where they can find what they need.” Muncey said she wouldn’t be surprised if county staff are fielding regular calls from frustrated residents who can’t find what they need on the county’s website. Providing clearer calls to action and explanations of county services and offerings would help alleviate that impact on staff time, according to Muncey. “Content is the huge pain point,” she said.

Implementing the findings of the audit could take up to a year, though Muncey said she hoped to start making some changes – like fixing broken links – as soon as possible. Some of that “low-hanging fruit” could happen in the first month, she said. The contract with Novum Productions also covers strategic marketing work, including helping the county refine its tagline and mission and vision statements. Muncey said her firm wouldn’t just be a contractor but a “teammate working in the trenches” with staff to tell the county’s story and ensure its website is regularly updated and user-friendly. “I think it’s going to be incredibly helpful for the community,” she said.

The approved contract with Novum Productions was scaled back from an initial $160,500 proposal that also included the creation of transparency and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dashboards and video production services to document local ARPA projects. County ARPA funds could be used to cover some of those services. Some commissioners wanted to see those projects put out to bid through a request-for-proposals (RFP) process, or else get more details from Novum Productions on exactly what their dashboard and video services would look like. The proposed ARPA dashboard would show the status of various local projects funded by Grand Traverse County ARPA funds, while the transparency dashboard could show commissioner per diem spending and other materials routinely requested by the public or in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Commissioners directed staff to bring back more information and options on dashboard and video services at a future meeting.

Board of Canvassers
County commissioners left two seats vacant on the Board of Canvassers – which is responsible for canvassing and certifying elections and conducting election recounts – after questions arose about the timing of the appointments and the nominees.

County Clerk Bonnie Scheele explained that every two years, two of the canvassers’ terms expire. Commissioners are required to “fill the two vacancies on the board by electing a Republican member and a Democratic member from the names submitted by the local political party,” she said. Democrats submitted nominees Stephen Horne, Diana Ketola, and John Snow. Republicans submitted nominees Scot Richards, Joe Welsh, and Barb Willing. Scheele said a change in local Republican leadership led the party to submit three candidates who are all “quite vocal about their distrust of Michigan elections.” Some of the nominees reiterated that election distrust while speaking during public comment Wednesday.

County Commissioner Penny Morris said commissioners should not select any candidates who will “create a hostile work environment for our clerk’s office.” She said elections staff “do a great job” and that she didn’t believe “there’s been any tomfoolery” in Grand Traverse County elections. Morris hoped for canvassers who would be “balanced, middle of the road, and able to put aside any kind of partisan politics that might exist.”

Election law in Michigan requires commissioners to appoint canvassers within 10 days of their annual meeting, which occurred on September 20. If they don’t do so, it falls to the county clerk to fill the seats from among the candidates put forward for consideration by the local parties. While Scheele said commissioners have missed that 10-day deadline in the past and still made appointments, commissioners agreed with county legal counsel Wednesday that they’ve already missed the window and should treat the seats as vacancies. That will leave Scheele to fill the seats on the Board of Canvassers.