Mayor & Commission Meetings

GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES Thursday, July 23, 2020 Committee Members Present: Committee Members Absent: Commissioner Andy Herod, Committee Chair Commissioner Patrick Davenport Commissioner Tim Denson Commissioner Melissa Link Guests: Staff: Josh Edwards, Assistant Manager Jessica Beri, Purchasing Administrator Sherrie Hines, Assistant County Attorney Toro Holt, Senior Buyer Brad Griffin, Planning Director Angel Helmly, Operations Analyst, Central Services Krystle Cobran, Inclusion Officer Kent Kilpatrick, Leisure Services Director David Boyd, Finance Director Committee Chair Herod called the meeting to order at 5:40 p.m. A. Approval of Minutes: Commissioner Link made the motion to approve the Minutes of the June 1, 2020 meeting. Commissioner Davenport seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous vote. B. Commission Identified Items of Interest: Review and make recommendations regarding contracting and procurement activities related to minority, local and underserved businesses, to create a favorable business environment and enhance local wealth creation. This should include outreach efforts and measureable goals and tracking. (Mayor Girtz assigned to GOC on February 4, 2020) Josh Edwards shared a slide of options that were discussed at the June GOC meeting regarding a Proactive Race Neutral Approach and a Race Specific Approach. He said that staff collected a number of FAQs from other communities that have done disparity studies to help answer some of the questions. He said that the GOC needs to develop a recommendation for the Race Specific Approach. The MBE position was added as part of the budget process. Josh asked the Committee how they see that position working based on the other things that have been discussed. Commissioner Link asked staff if they think it is important that we do a disparity study before coming up with what a MBE position looks like or should the MBE position be filled to help with the disparity study. Sherrie Hines said that before we do anything that would treat any business differently based on their minority status, we have to have the disparity study to justify that. Sherrie said that the intent of the new MBE person was to help begin collecting data and to continue our mission of reaching out and making sure that our opportunities are advertised to minorities.  Commissioner Denson stated that as part of our budget we have funding for the MBE position but we don’t have funding for a disparity study. He asked if it was possible to use the funding for the MBE position to do the disparity study. Commissioner Herod said that a disparity study is going to take some time to get going and if there are things that we can be doing in the interim, he would rather do that instead of waiting for the study. Commissioner Davenport and Commissioner Link agreed with this approach. Josh Edwards said that he and Krystle Cobran did some research on disparity studies. On the cost side we are probably expecting somewhere in the $200,000 range. The timing would be probably at least a year for the process. Krystle said that she had a conversation with Durham and was told the process lasted over a year and the cost was in a similar ballpark. She said it was a fairly extensive endeavor with the consultant having a lot of collaboration with staff. She said that it might be that the person in the MBE role would be the key contact person for the consultant to work with. Andy said that since we don’t have $200,000 at the moment, there are some things we can do this fiscal year. He asked if the Committee needs to make a decision to do the disparity study or could we wait and see what the MBE position can do? Melissa Link stated she would like to go ahead and hire the MBE person and have them begin collecting data and put together an RFP for the disparity study in preparation for next fiscal year. Commissioner Denson said that the priority needs to be doing the disparity study. Commissioner Herod stated that no one is against doing the disparity study, but the Committee needs to discuss the logical steps that will make it a success. Commissioner Herod said that he would think the MBE person along with our Inclusion Office would put a proposal together so that when the Commission begins talking about the budget they would be able to budget for the study. Commissioner Link agreed that we need the position to collect data in order to prepare the RFP for the study. Sherrie Hines said that when doing a disparity study in hopes of justifying a race based program in the future, it is required for us from a legal perspective to have exhausted and used other race neutral means. So using the MBE position and taking these steps would put us in a better legal position in the future. Commissioner Denson said that he agrees with Sherrie’s statement about being legally defensible. He just wants to be sure that we move forward with the RFP process as quickly as possible that it makes sense for us to be able to, not waiting a full year. He sees definitely assigning the RFP to the new position to be one of the priorities to get that off the ground and running. Commissioner Herod said that having the MBE person in place would give us two things, they could be going out into the community and helping people become more involved in bidding on contracts and they could gather information and start to look at other communities to start working on an RFP to be submitted later in this budget year in anticipation of funding being made available to fund it next budget cycle. Commissioner Denson asked Josh to add the disparity study to the Goals & Objectives presentation for discussion coming up this winter. Commissioner Link asked staff to make sure it is a budget priority. Government Operations Committee Meeting Minutes Page 2 07232020  Review of the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government policy for naming of public places in Athens (Mayor Girtz assigned to GOC on July 7, 2020) Commissioner Herod said he has talked with the Mayor and he wants the Committee to look at the process of naming public places and streets. Kent Kilpatrick shared the history of the 2017 Naming and Renaming of Public Facilities, Parks, Natural Areas and Amenities Policy. Kent said that one of the biggest obstacles has been defining the term “community support thresholds.” He said another item the Committee may want to discuss is the type of thresholds to be considered. Commissioner Herod asked Kent to put together a one page memo with any items that are issues with the current policy. Brad Griffin reviewed the Street Naming Policy. The current policy has been used since January 2, 1992. Commissioner Davenport said he has done some research in other cities. He said the street naming policy needs a complete overhaul to have the process more stringent. He said there are legal issues and it affects every resident on the street. Commissioner Herod asked Commissioner Davenport to share the information that he has with the Committee members. Commissioner Herod said that he see two issues: a policy to avoid confusion and a policy to name a street in honor of someone. He asked staff to provide the Committee with a list of any streets that are problematic with two streets being closely named. Commissioner Link said it is important to include folks that live on a street or have businesses on the street in the conversation at an earlier stage in the process. Commissioner Denson wants to look at where we may have problematic naming of streets and buildings and figuring out a process to deal with those issues. The meeting adjourned at 6:48 p.m. Government Operations Committee Meeting Minutes Page 3 07232020