Update

• Council voted 5:4 in favor of holding Councilperson Charland’s zoning bill for six weeks before scheduling a public hearing.

This Week’s Top Agenda Items

• Portable restroom back payment sparks inquiries into the prevalence of closed public restrooms in city parks.
• Open-ended professional services contracts add 27 unspecified new vendors.

Portable Restroom Back Payment Sparks Inquiries into the Prevalence of Closed Public Restrooms in City Parks

• A bill covering $35k in expenses for portable bathrooms led to a discussion about the number of broken permanent public restrooms in the city’s parks.
• Director Hornstein of the Department of Public Works did not have an exact count of closed public restrooms to share with Council.
• There are 20 open public restrooms in city parks.
• To restore inoperable restrooms, Director Hornstein stated that public approval and tax funding would be needed for:
  • An assessment of which restrooms are closed and what repairs and maintenance are required.
  • The actual repairs and maintenance, which will likely be significant given how long some have been closed.
  • A program to maintain the restrooms once they are reopened.
• The city spent $219,000 on portable restrooms in parks that lack functioning permanent public restrooms.
• Council members agreed that there should be a plan to begin addressing this long-standing issue.

Open-Ended Professional Services Contracts Add 27 Unspecified New Vendors

• Open-ended professional services contracts allow vendors to provide on-call professional services for work orders estimated to cost $100,000 or less.
• The program’s goal is to enable City departments to contract services on a rolling basis without seeking Council approval for each request.
• Services include architecture, interior design, and historic consulting, among others.
• New vendors will be added to the program on a rolling basis, but any new additions will require Council approval.
• No list of vendors was included in the legislation. Informup was unable to find a list of approved vendors. we reached out to council for a list of vendors that were approved, but we have not received a response by the time of publication.
• Councilperson Charland expressed concern that the “fairly self-governing” system of distributing work could lead departments to overlook minority contractors.

Tell The Council What you think

Let the City Council know how you feel about the above issues by taking this brief survey. We'll share everyone’s thoughts directly before they take a vote (We wont be presenting in person until we get to 50 respondents).

Email Readers can fill out the survey by clicking here.