Diane Moca: Welcome to Talking Cities Aurora. I'm Diane Moca, and these are the headlines in our city this week. A Chicago-based company is building a new website for the city of Aurora, despite an ordinance to give Aurora-based companies a preference when awarding city contracts. Council approved paying CityBase more than $600,000 to develop a website to allow people to take care of City Hall business, like payment collection online instead of in person. Bureau Gravity, which owns Talking Cities, is a local marketing agency with expertise in building websites. Bureau Gravity has been in Downtown Aurora for more than a decade and is listed as a vendor on Marketplace.city, which provided aldermen with a list of 50 companies for the job. Bureau Gravity was not included in the vendor summary provided to council, despite a city ordinance that's supposed to give a local business a chance to match the lowest bid. City staff presented a summary of five bids: $151,000 from 360Civic in California; $242,000 from CivicPlus in Kansas; $263,000 from Granicus, an international company with an office in Woodridge; and $322,000 from OpenCities in California. Aldermen chose the highest bid, $600,000 from CityBase, which was started in Chicago. Residents have not given up the fight against Storage of America, taking over the old Carson's store on Lake Street. Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin cast the tie-breaking vote against spending six months to evaluate other options for the property, and council subsequently approved the storage units. An attorney for Storage of America says it will take the company months to get permits, award the contract, and start construction, which they expect to finish in mid-2023. Neighbors opposed to the project say the city has reversed similar decisions in the past, and they are organizing to overturn this one. They say the city's chief management officer told the public he's available to discuss the project. The neighbors say he has not responded to their requests to meet. Residents are meeting with local architects and a local commercial real estate broker to develop their strategy. From Talking Cities Aurora, I'm Diane Moca, and those are the week's trending topics.