Two Million Dollar URL To Nowhere

In a time when the Baltimore City Public Schools are failing and the juvenile crime rate in the city is skyrocketing, the city government spent $2 million dollars on something VERY important.

A redesigned website.

Yes, that’s right. Baltimore City spent $2 million dollars on a redesigned website. The old website is still there, still functional, but the Mayor and City Council wanted a better one.

Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming issued a report on July 2nd that detailed the amount spent by the city for the website for a redesigned website. The contract for the building of the website was awarded to FEARLESS SOLUTIONS a company owned by Delali Dzirasa. The contract was worth three times the original estimate for the website revision (approximately $800,000) and the amount granted was seven times higher than the closest bidder.

The awarding of the contract was considered suspect as it was not done via the normal bid process. Rather, the Baltimore City Office of Information and Technology (BCIT) limited the number of potential vendors for the contract and favored “Vendor 1” (Fearless Solutions) even though there was a much cheaper alternative. The contract was for a “redesign” of the city’s website and was supposed to be completed by August 2023. It has yet to be finished.