TITLE
Recommendation to request City Manager to have the Purchasing Agent formulate a plan to allow residents engaged in City-financed facade improvements to have the choice to utilize vendors pre-qualified by the City.
DISCUSSION
Encouraging facade improvements is a major element of the City's plans to beautify neighborhoods and improve quality of life. Encouraging business owners to improve signage, repaint, and conduct other facade improvements is a "win-win" that improves private property while contributing to the improvement of the greater neighborhood. Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) dollars are a major source of funding for such facade improvements.
Currently, for CDBG facade improvements, private property owners search for and select contractors to conduct the improvements. The City then writes a check to reimburse owners for the improvement, from 85% to 100% of the cost of the improvements up to a dollar maximum. These contractors often charge significantly more than would be charged to the City, given our purchasing power. Redevelopment Agency facade improvement programs already offer the property or business owner the ability to use agency vendors. Most owners choose to use Redevelopment's preapproved vendors, saving themselves and the City money.
I propose to give the private property owners the opportunity to have the City request bids for CDBG facade improvement work and thus "pre-qualify" contractors to conduct this work. By doing so, the City and private property owners would be able to reduce the cost of facade improvement to the city and to the private property owner, if a match is required. Such a reduction in cost would mean that these scarce dollars could fund more improvements. Additionally, the administrative burden on the private property owners would be lessened, as the City would have already found qualified vendors, checked their references, confirmed the necessary insurance requirements, and prepared proposed contracts.
FISCAL IMPACT
Potential savings to the City are considerable, given the large amount of funds spent annually on facade improvements. Actual dollars saved will depend on several variables, such as the amount of CDBG funds used for facade improvements, the prices quoted by pre-qualified bidders, and utilization of pre-qualified bidders by program participants. Purchasing has indicated that bids from pre-qualified vendors could be presented to private property owners for a given project and that new vendors could be added to a pre-qualified bidders list. Purchasing feels that this activity could be absorbed by the current Request for Qualifications (RFQ) process and that staff time to implement this program would be minimal.
SUGGESTED ACTION
Approve recommendation.
Respectfully Submitted,
COUNCILMEMBER JAMES JOHNSON
7TH DISTRICT