Recodification and Hosting of City Code Addendum 1

City of Isle of Palms
Request for Proposals (RFP 2026-10)
"Recodification and Hosting of City Code"
Requirement. The City of Isle of Palms ("City") is soliciting proposals from qualified firms to provide
a complete, integrated municipal code recodification, online publishing/hosting, and ongoing
supplementation solution. The selected contractor shall provide all labor, materials, software,
technical expertise, legal and editorial review, formatting, indexing, migration, implementation,
hosting, support, and related professional services necessary to produce and maintain a
professionally recodified City Code.
The City is not requiring the selected contractor to publish the recodified Code on the City's current
third-party code-hosting platform. Instead, the successful proposer shall publish and host the
recodified Code on the proposer's own platform, or on a platform for which the proposer is fully
responsible under the resulting contract. The selected platform will become the City's primary public
online Code platform following City acceptance and go-live date.
Background. The City of Isle of Palms is a South Carolina municipality operating under the laws of
the State of South Carolina and the City's Procurement Code. The City's Code of Ordinances is
currently hosted online through a third-party provider and includes ordinances adopted over multiple
years. The City desires to modernize and comprehensively recodify the Code to improve
organization, usability, consistency, legal clarity, public accessibility, and administrative efficiency.
The City anticipates entering into an agreement with a qualified firm experienced in municipal
codification/recodification and online code publishing. The City seeks a single accountable
contractor for the recodification project, migration to the contractor's hosting environment, public
launch, and ongoing hosting and supplementation. Proposals may include subcontractors or
affiliated providers, but the proposer shall identify all such parties and remain responsible for the
complete solution.
Objectives. The objectives of this project include:
1. Comprehensive review of the City's existing Code of Ordinances. The City Code is here:
https://library.municode.com/sc/isle_of_palms/codes/code_of_ordinances;
2. Incorporation of all ordinances adopted since the last codification update;
3. Identification and elimination, subject to City authorization, of obsolete, repealed, superseded,
duplicative, or conflicting provisions;
4. Reorganization and renumbering of provisions where appropriate;
5. Standardization of formatting, definitions, style, citations, and internal references;
6. Creation and launch of a user-friendly, searchable, publicly accessible online Code hosted by the
selected contractor;
7. Creation of a user-friendly, searchable repository of available historical ordinances to expand and
replace the City page currently found at https://www.isleofpalms.gov/ordinances;
8. Preparation of editorial notes, cross-references, legislative history, tables, and indexes;
9. Compliance with applicable South Carolina statutory requirements and applicable web
accessibility requirements;
10. A migration and cutover process that minimizes disruption to public access;

11. Provision of ongoing online hosting, technical support, and supplementation services following
completion of the recodification project; and
12. Preservation of City ownership and practical portability of the Code and related data so the City
can transition to another provider in the future if necessary.
SCOPE OF WORK AND SERVICES
The selected contractor shall provide, at a minimum, the following services:
1. Initial Review and Project Assessment.
a. Review the City's existing Code of Ordinances and its current online presentation;
b. Identify and review ordinances adopted but not yet codified;
c. Identify inconsistencies, duplications, conflicts, obsolete provisions, and provisions requiring
clarification, renumbering, or reorganization;
d. Review available source files, ordinance scans, indexes, metadata, and other materials
needed for migration and recodification;
e. Meet with City staff and the City Attorney as necessary to establish project goals, schedule,
review cycles, comment deadlines, decision points, and response deadlines;
f. Identify at project initiation any information, file formats, exports, or cooperation required from
the City or current hosting provider; and
g. Finalize a recurring in-progress review (IPR) schedule, including the bi-weekly progress
updates described below.
2. Legal Editing and Recodification.
a. Prepare a comprehensive recodification draft that clearly enables City staff and the City
Attorney to review proposed editorial, organizational, and substantive recommendations;
b. Edit ordinances and Code provisions for format, grammar, numbering, consistency,
punctuation, and style;
c. Correct typographical and formatting errors;
d. Standardize terminology, citations, and internal references where appropriate;
e. Prepare editor's notes, legislative history notes, and statutory references where appropriate;
f. Recommend organizational improvements, including consolidation, relocation, renumbering, or
restructuring of provisions when beneficial;
g. Identify apparent conflicts with state law, internal inconsistencies, duplications, and other
matters requiring City or City Attorney review;
h. Maintain a clear record of recommended changes and the disposition of City comments;
i. Conduct bi-weekly project updates with the City to report progress, present questions, resolve
issues, and maintain the agreed schedule;
j. The contractor shall not make substantive legal changes to the City Code without City
authorization. Recommendations that may alter the legal meaning or effect of an existing
provision shall be clearly identified for City and City Attorney review and, where required,
formal action by City Council.

3. Code Organization, Indexing, and Legislative History.
a. Reorganize titles, chapters, articles, sections, and subsections where authorized and
appropriate;
b. Prepare updated tables of contents;
c. Create comprehensive indexes and cross-references;
d. Provide disposition and derivation tables sufficient to trace the relationship between the
current Code and the recodified Code;
e. Preserve and/or create section history notes and ordinance references as appropriate;
f. Provide a practical method for readers to access original ordinances associated with Code
provisions when available; and
g. Provide an archive or version-history method that allows users to understand prior Code
versions or supplement history, if available within the proposed platform. The proposer shall
describe the capability and any limitations.
4. Migration, Online Publishing, and Hosting.
a. The selected contractor shall migrate the City's Code and related materials from the current
environment into the contractor's proposed hosted platform and shall be responsible for
implementation, testing, launch, and ongoing operation of that platform. The City intends to
maintain public access to the current Code until the replacement platform is accepted and
ready for cutover.
b. The City will provide the selected contractor the current Code and related source materials
available to the City and will reasonably cooperate in obtaining available exports from the
current provider. The proposer shall identify any required export formats or migration
dependencies in its proposal and shall include in its price the conversion, loading, and
implementation work necessary to place the Code on the proposed platform.
c. At a minimum, the hosted solution shall provide:
(1) Free public access to the City Code without requiring a user account, subscription, or
payment;
(2) A responsive, mobile-compatible interface that functions on commonly used desktop and
mobile browsers;
(3) Full-text search of the Code with search results that reasonably identify and link to the
respective sections;
(4) Clear navigation by title, chapter, article, section, and other appropriate organizational
levels;
(5) Stable or durable links to individual Code provisions so City staff and the public can link
directly to specific sections;
(6) Hyperlinked internal cross-references and, where supported, external references to
applicable state law or other authoritative sources;
(7) The ability to print and download individual sections, chapters, articles, and/or the Code
in commonly usable formats;
(8) A clearly identified method for displaying recently adopted ordinances that have not yet
been incorporated into a formal supplement;

(9) A searchable historical ordinance repository, either within the Code platform or through a
tightly integrated companion repository, with access to available scanned ordinance
documents and basic identifying metadata such as ordinance number and adoption
date;
(10) Administrative or staff-facing tools, if offered, that allow designated City users to review
publication status, retrieve source material, or perform other appropriate Code-
management functions;
(11) Hosting, maintenance, backup, disaster recovery, and technical support appropriate for
a public municipal legal publication;
(12) A secure HTTPS connection and a service-level commitment for platform availability.
The proposer shall state its standard uptime/service-level commitment, planned
maintenance practices, backup approach, and incident-notification process;
(13) Accessibility of the vendor-controlled platform and vendor-created content consistent
with applicable law, including WCAG 2.1 Level AA when required. The proposer shall
describe its accessibility practices and how legacy scanned documents are handled;
and
(14) The ability for the City to link directly from www.isleofpalms.gov to the hosted Code and
ordinance repository. A custom City subdomain may be proposed but is not required.
d. The proposer shall clearly identify any hosting-platform features that are optional, separately
priced, available only at higher subscription tiers, or dependent on third-party products. Core
functionality proposed to satisfy this RFP shall be included in the base proposed solution
unless expressly stated otherwise.
5. Historical Ordinance Repository.
a. The City seeks to improve public access to scanned historical ordinances currently maintained
outside the hosted Code. The contractor shall provide a method to migrate, organize, and
publish the available historical ordinance collection in a searchable public repository.
Searchability shall include, at a minimum, available metadata such as ordinance number,
date, and title/subject. Full-text search of scanned ordinances through OCR or similar
technology is preferred where practical. Proposers shall describe the proposed approach,
any document-preparation requirements, OCR limitations, and any separate costs.
6. Ongoing Supplementation and Code Maintenance.
a. Following acceptance and publication of the recodified Code, the contractor shall provide
ongoing supplementation and publication services for newly adopted ordinances throughout
the contract term. The proposal shall describe the standard supplementation process and
shall address:
(1) How the City submits newly adopted ordinances and supporting materials;
(2) How and when newly adopted but not yet codified ordinances are made publicly
available online;
(3) Available supplementation frequencies and the typical or guaranteed turnaround time for
electronic publication and formal supplementation;
(4) Legal/editorial review applied during supplementation;
(5) How Code history notes, cross-references, tables, indexes, and online links are updated;

(6) How the City reviews and approves supplements before final publication, when
applicable;
(7) Whether the proposer offers fixed-price, subscription-based, per-page, per-ordinance, or
other supplementation pricing and what is included in each model; and
(8) How emergency or expedited publication requests are handled and priced, if available.
7. Training, Administration, and Support.
a. The contractor shall provide reasonable implementation support and at least one training
session for designated City staff at or before launch of the hosted Code. Training may be
virtual. The contractor shall also provide ongoing staff support for Code publication,
supplementation, account/access issues, and platform technical issues during the contract
term. The proposer shall identify standard support channels and response expectations.
8. Updates to Committee / Council Leaders.
a. Attend at least three City committee-level meetings: one near project initiation, one at
approximately the midpoint, and one to present the final recodification draft and proposed
hosted solution. Virtual attendance is acceptable unless otherwise requested by the City.
These meetings will provide opportunities for direction and guidance from elected leaders;
and
b. Be prepared to attend other public meetings as requested by the City. The proposal shall
identify any cost assumptions for meetings beyond the three required meetings.
9. Implementation, Acceptance, and Deliverables.
a. Deliverables shall include, at a minimum:
(1) Project work plan and schedule, including review cycles, decision points, migration
activities, testing, and target go-live;
(2) Draft recodified Code in an editable, portable format, preferably Microsoft Word;
(3) Redline or change-tracking version identifying revisions and recommended changes;
(4) Issue list, legal/editorial questions, and other review materials necessary for City and City
Attorney decisions;
(5) Final recodified Code in editable electronic format;
(6) Printable PDF version of the final Code;
(7) Indexes, cross-reference tables, disposition tables, derivation tables, and other agreed
reference materials;
(8) Migrated and organized historical ordinance repository as described above;
(9) Fully configured, tested, publicly accessible hosted Code platform containing the
accepted recodified Code;
(10) Training and administrative documentation sufficient for designated City staff to use
available platform tools;
(11) A post-launch process for ongoing supplementation, hosting, support, and
maintenance; and
(12) A complete export/transition package as described under Ownership, Data Portability,
and Transition upon City request or at termination/expiration of the hosting relationship.

(13) Assistance to the City and City Attorney in preparing an adopting ordinance and other
materials reasonably necessary for City Council to formally adopt the recodified Code.
b. The City will not consider the recodification project complete until the final Code and related
deliverables have been accepted by the City and the hosted platform has successfully gone
live. The contractor shall coordinate cutover with the City to minimize any interruption in
public access.
OWNERSHIP, DATA PORTABILITY, AND TRANSITION
All City legislative content and project-specific work product, including Code text, ordinance files,
scanned documents provided by the City, City-specific indexing and metadata, tables, cross-
references, editorial files, and final recodification files, shall remain or become the property of the
City. The contractor may retain ownership of its pre-existing proprietary software, hosting platform,
generalized tools, and other intellectual property that is not City-specific work product.
The City shall not be dependent on the contractor's proprietary platform to retain usable access to its
Code content. During the contract term and upon expiration or termination, the contractor shall, upon
request, provide the City a complete current export of the Code and associated City-owned data in
commercially reasonable, commonly usable formats. The export shall include an editable version of
the Code and, where applicable, a machine-readable export of Code structure and metadata
sufficient to support migration to another provider. Proposers shall identify the formats available for
export.
The proposal shall disclose any fees, technical limitations, license restrictions, proprietary
dependencies, notice periods, or other conditions applicable to export, transition, or termination. The
contractor shall provide reasonable transition assistance to the City and/or a successor provider so
the City can maintain continuity of public Code access. Any separately billable transition services
shall be clearly identified in the proposal.
CONTRACTOR QUALIFICATIONS
Proposers shall demonstrate:
1. Experience providing municipal codification and/or recodification services;
2. Experience providing and supporting a public online municipal code-hosting platform;
3. Experience migrating municipal code content from another provider or legacy platform;
4. Experience with South Carolina municipal codes preferred;
5. Qualifications and experience of legal editors, codification specialists, technical/implementation
personnel, and other key staff assigned to the project;
6. Ability to complete the recodification, migration, and public launch within the proposed timeline;
7. A record of reliable ongoing supplementation and hosting support; and
8. References from at least three municipal clients for substantially similar services.
Preference may be given to firms with substantial experience recodifying and hosting codes for
similarly sized municipalities. The City will consider integrated teams using subcontractors or
affiliated entities, provided the proposer clearly identifies responsibilities and serves as the single
point of contractual accountability.
PROPOSAL CONTENTS AND SUBMITTAL INSTRUCTIONS
Consistent with Chapter 10, Purchasing Procedures, Section 1-10-5(3), Methods of Source
Selection - Request for Proposals (RFP), and Section 1-10-8, Multi-term Contracts, of the City Code,
the City is requesting proposals that demonstrate professional and technical qualifications,
competence, and the ability to provide the integrated services described in this RFP.

Questions must be submitted by 5:00 PM on 18 September 2026. Questions submitted after this
time will not be answered. Send questions by email to skuester@isleofpalms.gov. Responses to
material questions will be issued by written addendum.
By 2:00 PM on 1 October 2026, please provide a hard copy proposal by hand, courier or mail to:
Douglas Kerr
City Administrator
City of Isle of Palms
1207 Palm Boulevard
Isle of Palms, South Carolina 29451
PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS
The proposal should include:
1. A cover letter introducing the firm and identifying the prime contractor and any subcontractors or
affiliated providers;
2. A description of the firm's qualifications to execute the combined recodification, migration, hosting,
and supplementation scope;
3. Examples of similar projects, including at least three public links to municipal codes currently
hosted on the proposed platform and client references;
4. A description of the proposed recodification methodology, legal/editorial review process, City
review process, and quality-control approach;
5. A description of the proposed hosting platform and how it satisfies each minimum requirement in
Scope of Work and Services, Item 4.c;
6. A description of the migration and implementation approach, including what the proposer requires
from the City or current provider and how public-access continuity will be maintained;
7. A description of the historical ordinance repository solution and proposed treatment of scanned
documents;
8. A description of ongoing supplementation, support, hosting maintenance, and service-level
commitments;
9. A description of key project personnel and their expertise, including the proposed project manager
and legal/editorial lead;
10. A proposed timeline covering project initiation, recodification drafts, City review, migration,
testing, acceptance, and go-live;
11. A detailed budget and cost breakdown using the pricing requirements below;
12. A description of data ownership, export formats, transition assistance, proprietary limitations,
license terms, and any other issues the City should be aware of;
13. The proposer's standard service agreement, hosting terms, service-level agreement, and/or
other material contract terms, if available; and
14. A narrative proposal of no more than 15 pages, excluding the cover letter, pricing schedule,
sample contract/terms, and requested supporting attachments.
PRICING REQUIREMENTS
To allow the City to understand both the one-time project cost and the long-term cost of the hosted
solution, proposers shall separately identify, at a minimum:

1. One-time recodification, legal/editorial review, indexing, and final production cost;
2. One-time migration, implementation, configuration, testing, and launch cost;
3. Historical ordinance repository setup, document preparation, OCR, indexing, or migration costs,
including any unit rates;
4. Annual hosting/platform subscription or licensing cost, with pricing shown for at least the first five
years and with the proposer stating when recurring hosting charges begin;
5. Ongoing supplementation pricing and the basis for charges, including fixed fees, subscription
amounts, per-page rates, per-ordinance rates, minimum charges, or other applicable unit pricing;
6. Training and implementation support costs, if not included elsewhere;
7. Optional products or features and their costs, clearly separated from the base solution;
8. Any annual price escalators, renewal increases, minimum commitments, or other recurring cost
adjustments;
9. Any export, termination, data-conversion, or transition fees; and
10. A five-year projected total cost of ownership for the proposed base solution, with all assumptions
clearly stated.
The City understands that supplementation volume may vary. Proposers should therefore provide
sufficient unit pricing and assumptions for the City to evaluate how costs will change as ordinance
volume changes.
The City anticipates a multi-term relationship for online hosting and supplementation following
completion of the recodification project. Proposers shall state the proposed contract term, renewal
structure, pricing period, and any termination requirements. Final contract term and renewal
provisions will be established through the resulting agreement consistent with the City's
Procurement Code.
EVALUATION PROCESS AND CRITERIA
The primary intent of this procurement is to obtain the best overall package of recodification,
implementation, hosting, supplementation, and support services for the City. Evaluation will consider
the quality and suitability of the complete solution, not solely the initial recodification price.
Respondents will be evaluated on experience, qualifications, methodology, hosting platform,
migration approach, project schedule, ongoing service model, pricing, data portability, and
references. The City reserves the right to reject, in whole or in part, any proposal that in the City's
judgment would not be in its best interest; to waive minor deficiencies; to request clarifications or
demonstrations; to negotiate with one or more proposers as permitted; or to reject all proposals.
Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
1. Experience and Expertise.
a. Demonstrated experience providing municipal recodification, online code hosting, migration,
and supplementation services.
b. Qualifications of the proposed project team, including legal/editorial and technical personnel.
c. Relevant South Carolina municipal experience and successful comparable projects.
2. Recodification Methodology and Approach.
a. Sound, understandable methodology for comprehensive Code review, legal/editorial analysis,
reorganization, change tracking, City review, and quality control.
b. Clear understanding of the City's objectives and the distinction between editorial
recommendations and substantive legal changes requiring City authorization.

3. Hosting Platform, Migration, and Ongoing Services.
a. Quality, usability, searchability, accessibility, reliability, and functionality of the proposed public
Code platform.
b. Strength of the migration and cutover approach, historical ordinance repository, ongoing
supplementation process, staff support, and service commitments.
c. Data ownership, exportability, and transition provisions that protect the City from unreasonable
vendor lock-in.
4. Timeline and Deliverables.
a. Realistic project schedule for recodification, review, migration, testing, launch, and final
acceptance.
b. Ability to meet project deadlines while providing meaningful City review opportunities and
regular progress updates.
5. Cost and Total Cost of Ownership.
a. Competitive and reasonable pricing for the one-time recodification and implementation work.
b. Reasonable and transparent recurring pricing for hosting, supplementation, support, and
optional services.
c. Overall value to the City over the anticipated multi-year relationship.
6. References and Service Record.
a. Positive municipal client references, particularly for projects involving recodification followed
by ongoing hosting and supplementation.
b. Demonstrated record of responsiveness, timeliness, platform reliability, and customer support.
The City may request a live or recorded demonstration of the proposed hosting platform and may
request clarification of pricing, contract terms, migration requirements, or other proposal elements
before final selection.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS AND GENERAL TERMS
Deadline for Submissions: The deadline for submission is 2:00 PM on 1 October 2026. Proposals
will be received by mail or courier at 1207 Palm Boulevard, Isle of Palms, South Carolina 29451 in a
sealed envelope. Sealed envelopes must be clearly marked "RFP 2026-10 - Recodification and
Hosting of City Code" and include one (1) hard copy.
It will be the responsibility of the proposers to verify receipt by the City. Proposals may be delivered
by hand or by mail, but no proposal shall be considered which is not actually received by the City at
the place, date and time appointed by the City and the City shall not be responsible for any failure,
misdirection, delay or error resulting from the selection by any proposer of any means of delivery. All
proposals submitted shall include a current e-mail address.
Proprietary and/or Confidential Information: Your proposal is a public document under the South
Carolina Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), except as to information that may be treated as
confidential as an exception to disclosure under the FOIA. If you cannot agree to this standard,
please do not submit your proposal. All information that is to be treated as confidential and/or
proprietary must be clearly identified, and each page containing confidential and/or proprietary
information, in whole or in part, must be stamped and/or denoted as CONFIDENTIAL, in bold, in a
font of at least 12-point type, in the upper right-hand corner of the page. All information not so
denoted and identified will be subject to disclosure by the City.
Proposers acknowledge and agree that the City will not be liable for any costs, expenses, losses,
damages (including damages for loss of anticipated profit) or liabilities incurred by the respondent or

any member of the respondent's organization as a result of, or arising out of, submitting a proposal,
negotiating changes, or due to the City's acceptance or non-acceptance of the proposal or the
rejection of any and all proposals.
Proposers are responsible for submission of accurate, adequate and clear descriptions of the
information requests. Neither issuance of the RFP, preparation and submission of a response, nor
the subsequent receipt and evaluation of any response by the City of Isle of Palms will commit the
City to award a contract to any respondent even if all the requirements in the RFP have been met.
Proposers must have or be able to procure an Isle of Palms Business License.