Issue RFP for Contract Maintenance Services for The Draw

As Council is aware, 2011 will be the first full year that the city will be maintaining The Draw.  Coinciding with this, is the mid-summer resignation of a full-time maintenance worker assigned to parks.

While additional seasonal worker hours have been budgeted for 2011 for the various added responsibilities, like The Draw and the maintenance of the HRA properties, there still will be the absence of the more skilled FT hours within parks' and public works' due to the resignation.  This case discusses a partial strategy to 'backfill' those hours.

At this time, staff will not be bringing forward a request to the Personal Committee for replacing the FT worker that is resigning in early August - but rather performing a detailed analysis of how several aspects of park operations may be contracted out; and in a separate process, re-examining how operations may be realigned.  The first step in the contacting examination is to identify base-line costs for any particular activity, such that the merits of contacting can be properly evaluated.

Comprehensive accounting of the hours and costs of maintaining The Draw are being collected and organized, beginning with spring start-up.  This case requests Council concurrence with the terms of the RFP prior to issuing the call for proposals. 

The attached RFP addresses the more significant spring, summer and early fall maintenance of The Draw (that is, not all maintenance, but those elements that are specific, and contractors should be well equipped to bid on).  Previously, RFP's have been issued for two-year periods; the following is (a part of) the proposed language staff requests consensus on:

"2.4 Contract Term: The term of this contract shall be for one season, effective from the date of award. With mutual written agreement of the parties, this contract may be extended for four (4) one-season periods. The mowing season for the contract starts on the Monday of the first week of May to the Monday of the first week of October (inclusive)."

The intention is to issue this call for proposals to any and all persons interested in bidding on the park's maintenance, during early July, and have a contractor selected for sometime in early August.  (In subsequent years, the term would be a full maintenance season, and not begin mid-year.)

This topic report does not implicate funding, and results of the RFP will be brought back to City Council for funding authorization.  General Fund savings from not filling the Parks Worker vacancy will be available as a funding source for this contract.

Consensus recommendation to approve or modify the Request for Proposals for Contracted Maintenance for The Draw.