ASI abandoned their contract with San Diego-based Six-One-Nine Graphic Design Company regarding a new ASI Web site.

The ASI Board of Directors voted unanimously during their last board meeting to pass a resolution terminating the agreement with Six-One-Nine. The resolution also served to enter ASI into an agreement with Sacramento State student Sonny Ramsay to design the ASI Web site.

ASI Associate Director Randy Radcliff cited the repeated inability of Six-One-Nine to deliver on ASI’s ideas for the Web site.

“The quality of work was weak,” Radcliff said. “We wanted Flash elements, we wanted it to be very colorful.”

According to Radcliff, Six-One-Nine submitted a total of five proposals for the Web site, which has been in limited operability for over a year. Radcliff said all of the ideas were very similar and did not incorporate bright colors or attention-getting graphics.

Ron Kipnis, owner of Six-One-Nine, stated that he received a letter from ASI Executive Director Pat Worley on March 10, terminating the relationship and requesting a detailed report of where ASI’s $5,000 deposit went. Kipnis said that that list was sent off immediately.

The letter was dated March 7, three days prior to the Board’s vote on the matter. Worley said the issue was discussed at the March 5 working board meeting and no complaints were raised. Worley did note that, according to the ASI bylaws, resolutions can not be approved at a working board meeting.

However, Worley did draft and send out the letter before the Board agreed to terminate the contract.

Radcliff said Ramsay’s design was exactly what ASI was looking for, so the possibility of Ramsay completing the project was presented.

The author of the resolution, Mathematics and Natural Sciences Director Lorraine Armijos, said that the resolution was needed to settle the issue.

“We’d all seen Sonny’s work, and it was what we were looking for,” Armijos said.

Radcliff said Ramsay placed a bid at the outset of the project and was considered the second place bid behind Six-One-Nine. Radcliff thinks that, due to the time-sensitive nature of the project, it was more prudent to hire Ramsay than reopen a new bidding process.

Ramsay said his initial bid in the summer of 2002 was for $8,000. At the time, he ran a company called WebArtisans.net. The company folded last December due to undisclosed reasons.

Radcliff said Ramsay would receive $5,000 for his work on the project. The original Six-One-Nine contract was for $10,000 – $5,000 of which was paid upfront. According to Radcliff, no additional money would need to be spent on the creation due to the choice of Ramsay.

However, according to Ramsay, no written contract has been presented or signed. Vice President of Finance Peter Ucovich is concerned.

“Verbal contracts aren’t worth much these days,” Ucovich said. Despite his wariness, Ucovich did not protest the resolution at the meeting.

Despite the lack of a binding contract, Radcliff and Ramsay both anticipated the arrival of the new Web site March 18. Results of this prediction were not available at press time.

Ramsay said the project is not ready in its entirety due to information needed from the dozen ASI program managers. The new Web site will include information for all of these organizations.

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