05-05-14 MBE/WBE - Laserfiche WebLink

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Sam Centellas and Tom Capers agreed. They both said an effort to increase awareness, to match opportunity with capacity, break down barriers and to simplify the process was vital. Valerie Schey, the City Council liaison, suggested the City might bid for professional services as well as goods and services. With that President Summers asked the board to focus on section 1 of the current ordinance with specific attention to definitions. Carrie Kosac suggested the material provided by Council Attorney Cekanski - Farrand dated March 18th helped clarify some contradictions in the ordinance. In the roundtable discussion that followed several clarifications of definitions and points of emphasis to better delineate and measure goals were identified. Among those were, as previously mentioned a tighter definition of "good faith," and a clarification of the designation local business enterprises (LBE). Verification of ownership and certification documentation was discussed in terms of who, how and why information would be collected and verified. Sam Centellas brought up the notion of using certification criteria other than, the state certification Carrie Kosac pointed out that an alternate certification had been suggested in the Trinal study. Eric Horvath said perhaps a "grace period" allowing non - certified businesses to qualify for work prior to meeting certification would help nurture smaller providers. Having identified work that needed to be addressed in section 1, Mr. Summers shifted the discussion to section 2 of the ordinance affecting board makeup and protocols. He began by noting his dissatisfaction with the lack of "due process" in the removal of someone from the board. Could a member be removed by their appointing entity, Mayor, Council or Chamber in a seemingly arbitrarily manner? For better or worse the answer was deemed to be yes; though it was agreed there was dissatisfaction without some level of "due process ". A variety of other deficiencies or challenges were noted in the current ordinance. Specifically, Jan Hall, the City's Diversity Compliance Officer, wondered about the reference to achieving "federal goals ". This led to some discussion of legislative intent and the need for measures to determine progress toward achieving goals. George King, responding to Carrie Kosac's question about training, said training referred to training for department heads in the city to attune them to fostering minority business access to contracting for goods and services. Eric Horvath felt the reference in the ordinance to (MOU's) Memorandums of Understanding between contracting parties needed to be better defined. This went hand in hand with Valerie Schey's query about whether a builders affidavit is adequately defined by either the Board of Public Works or the DUB, suggesting both be the same.