[Music]
okay good afternoon everyone welcome to
the work session las cruces city council
today is monday december 13th 2021.
before we begin and before we have a
pledge of allegiance i'm going to ask
you please rise for a brief moment of
silence for the
men and women children all who who lost
their lives in mayfield kentucky and
other surrounding areas during the
tornadoes
join me in the pledge please
thank you
okay so now we're gonna have our pet of
the week jennifer martinez from our
communications office we'll
introduce them
afternoon mayor and council i'm jennifer
martinez with the city's communications
office and today i would like to
introduce you to our pets of the week
and the first one we have is ozzie ozzy
is a six-month-old cat who's been at the
shelter for most of his life ozzy likes
to let everyone know that black cats
need love not just during halloween he
loves to play with toys and he loves
getting pet by caregivers he is very
sweet and he hopes that you might have a
home for him
and then we have molly molly is a
one-year-old female she's told she's
sweet all the time but she's still
waiting for someone to take her home to
find out for themselves
she does well with other dogs and she's
learning how to walk on a leash she's
doing better at this training than when
she first started and she hopes that you
might be able to help train her some
more she is ready to find her forever
home
you can meet molly or ozzy at the animal
service center of the messiah valley
first you need to call
3820018 to make an appointment and be
sure to call in with their animal number
and also this weekend you can find pets
and members of the ascmp at the farmers
market from 9 00 a.m until noon thank
you mayor
thank you jennifer
next we're going to go to jobs of the
week
i see elizabeth
coming down elizabeth peters our
director of economic development
so how can i make that announcement
good afternoon mayor and city council my
name is elizabeth teters and i am here
to show you the jobs of the week
all right first off the city of las
cruces has a construction inspector job
that is open until december 18th
there is a warehouse repacker with
admiral beverage that closes on march
7th of 2022
an office administrator with torres
welding that closes on january 6th
a mechanical engineer with tmc design
that closes on march 7th and a
maintenance technician with j.l gray
that closes on january 6th for more job
information you can find it with new new
mexico workforce connections at
employeenm.com or 524-6250
okay thanks elizabeth and again
congratulations on your new position
thank you
okay next we're going to have our kovit
19 update
and assistant city manager mr eric
enriquez will be providing it for us
good afternoon mayor and council eric
enriquez assistant city manager
with this week's uh covet update
um
so positive cases count positive case
counts in dona ana county has seen
somewhat of a decrease the last seven
days
the vaccination progress is continuing
to get better and increase
the adult population the single dose has
gotten up to 90 percent now i think we
were at 80 some
last week now we're at 90 with the
single dose
uh but the hospital as i as i said the
first one shows that the number of case
counts in the last seven days have
decreased about 29 percent
but in the hospital cases we're still
seeing more and more
individuals go to the hospital and stay
there and these are attributed to those
that are unvaccinated
so we're seeing an increase for the
hospital probably the highest that
they've seen in a while
up to that 72.8 percent with icu beds
being used for the cobit 19 and again
this is
mountain view and
memorial medical
other items to note the las cruces
public school has completed their
vaccinations
in the middle school and it was a
positive turnout
new mexico doh is continuing to
prepare the transition
for a point of distribution
with the contractor at the end of
december that would be a pmg as a
contractor they're expected to
start in a couple of days december 15th
fema should also be sending a bus for
vaccinations later this month and those
points of distribution will be the las
cruces area santa teresa and nmsu
the vaccine task force continues to meet
we'll have a meeting this wednesday
with the intent to continue to promote
messaging and education
ms carlo walton has some messages to
come up for the holidays that she's
working on and we'll be sharing those
with the task force and then
later on with covet updates
we'll continue to increase vaccinations
to include
the booster dosage back when the vaccine
task force started our goal one of our
goals was to reach 85 percent of the
adult population
uh to be fully vaccinated by the end of
the year
we've come very close so thank you mayor
and counselors that are on that uh
health committee to help us with the
vaccine task force to get that message
out to our community
thank you
i'll stand for any questions thank you
eric
and um
now on the booster
and i'm just trying to find the name of
the
new pharmacy just around the street here
let's see
yeah so no appointment you walk in
and what's really neat about it is both
of the pharmacists were one of my top
teens back in 2008 and 2009.
so they own their place and and they
really just walk in so there's just no
appointment needed so if you want the
booster that's worth it so thank you for
the name of that
yeah thank you mayor
any questions eric
thank you very much er all right thank
you sir
okay we have uh two items on the agenda
the first one is going to be the
internal audit review of eligibility for
the american rescue plant act or arpa
and that's our internal auditor viola
padea is going to
share with us that information
sorry just give me one moment here
okay i can't seem to get here we go
good afternoon mr mayor councillors
viola perea with city uh your city
auditor
and today we're going to go over some
preliminary observations that we've been
able to
determine based on our review of the
arpa review process
i will advise that the entire review
process has not yet been completed
there's still some information that
needs to be reviewed and documented
however we do have some preliminary
observations to share with you today
and also i wanted to note that when we
do complete the review before we
disseminate the report the final report
to council that audit needs to go to the
city manager's office for review and
comment and then to our oversight
committee as well for real comment at
which point then we can actually publish
the end result of the report
so today just some responsibilities uh
tasked for internal audit we are here to
make recommendations for increased
efficiency to the city manager and work
with departments and management on
management and process improvement we
maintain generally accepted government
auditing standards
and we're required to comply with the
iia international standards for the
professional practice of internal
auditing
and our reporting as mentioned
previously our reporting is uh we shall
comply with section 2-178.4
in the accountability and government
ordinance
so internal audit was asked a few weeks
ago
to review the eligibility process
followed for applications submitted for
the american rescue plan act known as
arpa for that funding that was awarded
to the city in 2021
our review includes a review of the
published requirements in the rfp and
the criteria utilized in the selection
process
the arpa rfp i need to announce is still
an open procurement so any details
regarding the applications cannot be
discussed
our preliminary observations show that
the process followed to determine
eligibility was not sufficiently
designed or documented to support a
clear consistent and transparent
eligibility determination
what we did to come to that at this
stage to come to that preliminary
observation is we reviewed the rfp guide
and within the rfp guide and application
there is a one-page document that
includes an 11-step selection and
evaluation process
however only step 2 of that outline
applies directly to eligibility
determination
and it states non-scoring staff will
review applications for eligibility
determination and full submittal
requirements
we were not able to find any additional
evaluation guidance for determining
eligibility within each of the
applications
specific eligibility criteria and
requirements were not documented
excuse me to identify how eligibility
would be determined we do know there is
the cfr 200 there's the interim rule
there are the compliance guides and
there's the rfp itself
but there's an overwhelming amount of
information all of those documents we
were not able to find a clear and
concise list if you will or a matrix a
checklist something of that nature that
would indicate these specific items
would deem an application eligible and
any deviation from that would deem them
ineligible
the three-person committee that reviewed
the 21 applications for eligibility did
record their comments
in the online system sm apply that
everyone used to submit their
applications
however the reviewers did not record the
existence the non-existence or the
applicability of any eligibility
criteria or requirements
consistency and appropriateness
therefore of the eligibility
review process cannot be confirmed
we are also looking for potential
non-compliance with the city's
procurement code related to the rfp
process
we've identified four sections where we
might have some issues
the first is section 24-31 direct
contact
that applies to our applicants having
direct contact with council during the
rfp process
section 2462 authority and duties
applies to the procurement manager the
purchasing manager in this case
the rfp did not go through our finance
purchasing department it was handled by
another group and then we mirrored that
process with the rfp process had it been
followed by the procurement purchasing
department excuse me
the individual who was deemed authorized
to head this process
was
should have been i should say
either designated as such by our stating
purchasing manager or could have been
delegated by the city manager and
approved by council we were unable to
find any documentation that would
indicate the delegation happened in
either of those two purposes or two ways
the third section
24-122 request for proposals
outlines the criteria where the
discussion and any details of the
procurement process
need to be
kept confidential and not disclosed in
public while the rfp is still
open
in section 24 123 selection advisory
committee
the sac process that we use for rfps
will indicate in the rules that the
purchasing manager in this case the
person delegated
is an advisory component they are not
a scoring or a voting member of the
process and in this case the person we
believe was deemed or delegated for this
purpose did participate in the voting
process for the determination for
eligibility
the next section we're looking at is
non-compliance with the city finance
department standard operating procedure
for procurement contracts
it states the the sac
all sac members should sign a
confidentiality form at the beginning of
the sac process
and non-conflict of interest forms
before they are given the proposals and
associated rfp materials
for this committee both the three-person
committee and the nine-person committee
that reviewed the applications
afterwards
we were not able to find either of these
documents for those individuals
and with that i'll stand for any
questions
thank you viola for your report and i'm
going to turn over to my colleagues if
you have any questions counselor
florida's counselor vasquez
thank you mayor and thank you ms peder
given the non-compliance where are we
where are we with this
at this point
procedurally procedurally all the work
has been completed i'm in the process of
writing the report
so it's just a matter of days now to get
all the document compiled into the
report and ready for review by the city
manager
and then after that would we
reconvene on this particular item
and
to vote on or would there be
more
information provided by your office for
city council
mr mayor counselors once we complete the
report i will include some
recommendations for consideration by
city management it'll go to the city
manager for review and comment the next
step is to go to our oversight committee
for review and comment
if they have no comments i'm able to
publish that report immediately however
if they do have comments i cannot
publish that report for another fifteen
days so it's going to take potentially
from a week to maybe three weeks three
to four weeks before council will get
the final report at which point you can
review the content and any
recommendations and then take a
subsequent action
if in a perfect world
what would be the soonest a week two
weeks from from today
from today i our oversight committee
meets once a month our next meeting is
this wednesday
i won't have it completed and reviewed
by the city manager before wednesday and
we only bring reports to them once a
month so
best case scenario it'll be in january
thank you very much miss video thank you
mr mayor
thank you councillor flores let me
excuse me council vasquez
thank you mayor uh thank you mrs peder i
appreciate you bringing this
preliminary audit results to us
so what is that what is the process when
we have
different findings of non-compliance
within the rfp process
what is the
what is the typical course of action
that we should take as a city government
to
to ensure that we are in compliance
mr mayor councillors the standard
process for
any audit that we complete we provide
that information with recommendations to
city management
and then it is up to management to
decide whether or not they're going to
take a course of action that was
recommended maybe they might decide on
following a different course of action
or they may choose to accept the risk
and it stays status quo so the next step
is really determined on what management
would like to do
thank you mr when you say accept the
risk
what specifically does that entail
in this particular case we do have a
process that does not appear to be
consistent or clear
and if we were to move for example to
move forward without
taking any other action to remedy some
of those issues and we move forward with
the decision based on where we're at the
results of the reviews as they are
the potential risk there would be
inconsistencies that are accepted and
we're going to move forward you know
regardless of what that might be
there could be a reputational risk the
community may not have a level of
confidence that we
did our due diligence and evaluated all
applications in a fair and consistent
manner
so it's really hard to say what the the
end result might be but i think that's
going to be the biggest risk is is that
lack of confidence that we've done
a good thorough job of evaluating all of
these for eligibility before we
disseminated any monies
thank you mr thank you mayor those are
my questions
anybody else have any questions
counselor um may approach him and then
counselor florida thank you mayor thank
you so much um ms pereira for your work
on this i very much appreciate it my
question is around the precurement in
that particular slide um
just those points about maybe the
possibilities of a
potential vendor having communication
with council yes slide seven thank you
the direct contact
is that
even does that also include folks that
um
may have received a mess an email
verifying that there they did not move
into the second
um phase if you will does that include
that and
if if so
then
or or
i guess i'm concerned about the
those letters that were sent i
understand there was some letter sent to
those potential vendors that did not
make the next level
mr mayor counselors thank you for that
question
in the the
procurement code
the two sections that i'm looking at
here it says during the evaluation of
proposals and until approval of the
recommendation of award by city council
the contents of proposals may not be
disclosed
so we are not in a public forum
sharing all the particulars of the
details of all 21 of the applications so
in that perspective
the letter would not violate or in my
opinion would not violate this
particular section of the code
let me invite this second in just a
moment
and in the other article 24-31 direct
contact
excuse me it states direct contact with
city elected officials or city staff
other than the purchasing manager
during the bid proposal process will
render the bidder proposal as
non-compliant and no further
consideration will be given to the
bidder proposal
so i know there has been
some communications by some of the
vendors we have been able to confirm to
a certain extent at this point that
there have been communications
but the letter was submitted by i
believe by miss green
and she in this case is acting as the
purchasing manager so that communication
on its own does not violate in my
opinion this particular section of
procurement code it would be
something more of what happened last
monday
where individuals were were here at the
podium and there was a conversation an
exchange of information
between council and either city staff
for those individuals where these kinds
of issues might be a problem for us
thank you miss perea and then my
follow-up question would be
in those instances where folks were
deemed ineligible
by that letter do folks have an
opportunity to come back and grieve or
[Music]
that particular process
and if so how many days
do they have
mr mayor counselors yes there is a
process within the rfp
um in in the rfp here where there is a
grievance or a challenge if you will um
i will have to look this up but i
believe the amount of time is five days
from notice okay so it is quite possible
that that time has already lapsed if
notice is determined to be based on that
letter
uh that is part of what we'll be
adding to our report to be able to
confirm i didn't bring or tab that
information right here but i can get it
to you okay thank you miss padaya thank
you mayor those are all my questions
council flores uh thank you mayor
uh thank you again miss pena
in so far as a question that mayor pro
tem gondara asked about the the letter
going out
to those who did not
didn't clear the process of acceptance
of their rfp
was it clearly explained to them because
as
i recall last week it seemed that people
were unclear as to why they were not
selected
and does that qualify as a
proper notice letter
mr mayor counselors first i want to
point out that compliance with the
procurement code was not identified in
the room which i don't like to do but we
can assume when we issue an rfp
that both city staff and individuals
understand that we have rfp rules and
those rules need to be followed during
the rfp process that was not
specifically stated in the rfp
and so folks who may not be familiar
with the process may not have known to
follow up and understand what those
rules are
in regards to the letters that were sent
out my understanding is there was very
limited information provided in those
letters
but as the review process showed we did
not specifically identify which criteria
would deem someone ineligible or or
eligible or ineligible
the comments made did not specifically
state this person was ineligible because
and we did have a three-person review
um some of those comments like i said
were blank or some of the comments made
did not tie back to a particular
requirement outlined in the rfp or any
of the other documents
so it's really difficult to say at this
point
specifically why they were deemed
ineligible and i don't know if staff
would easily be able to come to that
determination without bringing that
three-person committee back together
again and trying to understand who all
voted the way they did and for what
reason
well
as a follow-up to what you just stated
it seems to me that if someone is being
denied or basically being deemed
ineligible to receive the arpa funds
that there'd be a clear explanation
as to why
and
then there would also have to be and the
reason for that would be just out of
fairness to the applicant and the other
would be to be in full compliance with
arpa requirements as to how
the monies are being distributed
so it seems to me that the the process
at this point
was quite faulty i don't know
if that's a correct assessment but it
seems like there's a lot of holes
in so far as direct contact is concerned
on page seven the slide that's up right
now
by direct contact
does that does direct contact mean
a substantive communication
insofar as this whole rfp
process is concerned
or
in um i i personally do not recall
receiving any
uh
any email or call from anyone in in
who applied for this
but if i had i i would have let you know
when you sent out that email
but um
but
is that does that qualify as a quote
contact or does contact mean
a full communication of substantive
communication regarding
the rfp process and well the application
specifically by the
applicant
mr mayor counselors again thank you for
that question i will defer to jennifer
on a legal definition of direct contact
however for our audit purposes we are
documenting if any type of contact was
made
between an individual and a member of
city council
and in this case we have confirmed there
have been texts there have been emails
and then there was the the face-to-face
communication here last monday
but i will defer to jennifer vega brown
our city attorney for any other legal
definition thank you mr pedia
mayor and city council that's jennifer
vega brown your city attorney um
in the past i would have to look at the
specifics of this
situation i have not reviewed any of
that in the past we have considered a
direct communication a one-way email
communication as a direct communication
i don't know if that would it would just
depend on many things and we can
evaluate whether or not an email
communication was opened if it was read
we there are many things to consider
without knowing any of that information
in the past we have considered an email
communication a direct communication
is that okay
you're
good with that answer
well it does put into question
an email i did receive
wanting to
offering to
explain to me
the ubi or the ugi and the importance
thereof and i declined on both occasions
and i should have should i have told you
that yes i did have contact
mr mayor councillor flores yes please if
you wouldn't mind please respond to the
email and indicate which individual or
individuals you may have had
emails sent to you from i appreciate
that i'll do that thank you thank you
okay councillor cuomo
thank you mayor
um and thank you so much ms berea for
all the work you've done in the last
week
for to get us to this point i really
appreciate you so thank you
um yes i just have a couple clarifying
questions
um in terms of the
purchasing manager and delegation of a
person in charge
peace
i'm curious
i feel like there must have been that
delegation because
since the beginning of
this process of us even knowing that
there was going to be arpa funds
um or maybe even the you know once we
said okay we're going to
delegate assign 10.4 million dollars
towards community involvement
there was a very clear person leading
the charge and that was miss natalie
green i feel like there was that there
had to be at some point some
process for
that person to have been delegated the
lead
mr mayor councillor ben como um yes
there there were many conversations and
and discussions that led up to today
i spoke with alex liu our purchasing
manager he was unaware of any delegation
made there was no documentation to
support that a
delegation had been made
the other option is to have that
delegation made by the city manager and
approved by council
i did
contact natalie green as well asked her
if there was any documentation that
would support
that assignment being made she was going
to be looking into some of those as of
now i haven't received anything that
conclusively says yes you were delegated
as the purchasing manager in this case
however with the progression of how this
project has moved forward and the
acceptance by council the approval by
council on some of the processes up to
or all of the processes up to this point
we can assume that delegation was made
but i was looking to see if we had
anything specific that said we are not
going through our purchasing department
instead we're going this avenue and you
are going to lead the charge i have not
been able to document or confirm at what
point that took place okay thank you
um and then you also said that that
particular person took
um part of the voting process that was
not my understanding as of the last
couple of presentations that that
happened that there was non-voting
members of the committee
mr mayor counselors let me explain what
took place
in my thought process here the
eligibility determination was made by a
three-person non-scoring committee
and what those folks were tasked with
doing is reviewing the applications
excuse me
excuse me and determining eligibility
and then going into the electronic
system and voting essentially a yes or
no or making that determination of a yes
or no
in the system which would then determine
whether or not that application was
eligible or not
it had to be a unanimous decision a yes
or no which i'm calling a vote it's
essentially a vote
or that determination to make the
eligibility determination
and it took
excuse me unanimous yeses to move that
application forward
if there were one or two no's that
application did not move forward okay
in none of the cases were any of the
nine applications deemed ineligible
deemed so by one no
there were at least two
however within that three-person
committee it did include miss greene
okay and if she was acting in this
capacity according to our or the policy
she would not be uh able to participate
in that she's more of a reference for
the committee and not a contributor and
in this case she was okay thank you for
that
um and then
in terms of um actually this slide
there i feel like there are some a
couple of things in here even this who
takes the lead maybe this is a question
for you or ifo in terms of
what are our internal processes that say
so that some of these things don't fall
through the cracks because they feel
like a couple of them could have
potentially been easily avoided
and so what are internal processes that
say okay
we're going at an rfp are we internally
checking the list are we meeting these
um requirements on in the procurement
code is
do we have that if not
can we because it just feels like some
of these things could have been
easily preventable
mr mayor counselors i agree and that was
the issue throughout the process we
don't have a documented process that
outlined all the steps each of these
committees will do however we do have
our procurement code which outlines the
rfp process we do have a purchasing
department to serve as a reference or a
guide
you know for any individual who might
undertake this process outside of
purchasing so there are resources to
help us complete the process in
accordance with our ordinances in this
particular case we did not have a
process outlined that would indicate
each step that needed to take place or
that it actually occurred okay that's
helpful
um i think that
and is that for just this specific
instance or is that for any
big rfp
that exists
that we have this checklist
mr mayor counselor i would recommend it
for any project it's always good to have
a
a resource to say i need to do these
things i can check them off as they're
completed i know when we complete an
audit we prepare an audit plan that
outlines every step we need to take in
order to fulfill our obligation it's
really helpful
i know we have
the pdmm
which is used for construction projects
which guides
the procurement process and and the
project completion of a construction
project has a similar nature
embedded in that so i would recommend it
for any large process to make sure we
don't miss a step along the way yes me
too okay thank you counselor do you mind
if uh
not at all
thank you counselor mayor
uh yeah just as a
thought as well
this beretta was uh was asked to
take a look at our our process as it
relates to the procurement code which
has done an excellent job in
in going through
uh you know this is this is all kind of
been new to us you know with arpa and i
i believe the way we looked at it just
as staff is that
the process that we've brought forward
uh was approved right i mean we bring
certainly natalie was was presenting as
you mentioned casa become
as it matches up to the procurement i
mean it's lesson learned that we need to
state that um
but the way we've seen it is that it was
publicly
i mean we went through several meetings
about exactly who would be on the
committee who would be on
who would be leading the charge
and um
and as uh
as we look you know you asked about in
the future
certainly something that we will we will
physically state it physically i mean we
will definitely state and physically
document
but i think it's more of a technicality
than
like i said i think by nature of
of the approval of the council approving
the process that was presented
i think in my mind i checked that box
and that's why
maybe we're missing some of those things
but we knew natalie would be leading the
charge number one we knew that committee
would be
determining eligibility
and we knew that it wouldn't be running
through our purchasing manager
um that was all
public and whether or not we don't you
know
i think it's lesson learned that we need
to get maybe physical documentation in
the future but
i don't think anybody was unaware
of our process and i think that's what
we
i guess when we you know we'll have
natalie
maybe present and talk about how
we followed you know the process that we
brought forward to be approved but
certainly we need to look to the futures
that we make sure we follow our
all the documentation in our procurement
uh our city procurement process
thank you
and then um yeah just a couple last
questions i know that you've laid out
some of the next steps is it in in your
recommendation that while these next
steps are being followed the
to the
report to the city manager and then the
oversight committee that this process
pause until
we can further say
this is what needs to happen and i
assume that a couple of the options are
the process can be fixed right or
we would have to start over i imagine
those are sort of the two pathways
forward
so that was a two-part question
does the process pause in your
recommendation as of now
and
are those sort of the next
the two way the two paths
from this
mr mayor councillors that's it's
i'm going to answer both of your
questions with basically one statement
um at this point the recommendation um
is going to be to create
a guide
um that clearly articulates how we're
going to determine eligibility any
parameters for determining eligibility
calculations etc but specifically which
items are going to be used in making
that determination
the process should outline every step
that that committee
needs to take in order to come to that
determination and include that matrix or
criteria that specifically outlines how
a person will be deemed eligible
at that point my recommendation would be
not necessarily to start the process
over from scratch with a new posting
but to apply that process and that
matrix to all 21 applications and
complete the reevaluation
process from there that is incredibly
helpful thank you so much miss pereira i
really appreciate you thank you thank
you mayor
we have a counselor beta stewie and
counselor vasquez
thank you mayor and
thank you very much miss perea
most of the questions i think you've
been very thorough with i just wanted to
go back and
ask just a
follow-up and clarification you had said
that there was a few documentation items
that you were not able to find um one of
them was on is it conflict of interest
within the sac committee and
i'm assuming we do have a defined
process for that already spelled out
and so then i would ask
if there's been any clarification on why
that processes was not
included or documented
mr mayor councillors um my understanding
is the committees both committees the
three person and the nine-person
committees were not asked to fill those
out
if they were asked none of those copies
were provided so at this point i can
answer specifically
if that's been changed or exactly why
that took place
but the information that i have does not
point to either of those documents being
filled out by any of the individuals on
those two committees okay thank you very
much and as we look forward um on this
and other procurement options i do think
we need to have some follow-up on
if processes that we do have listed are
not
filled out correctly and then we need to
have some follow-up mechanisms as well
and perhaps that's something that
can come through our oversight committee
thank you mayor
okay thank you councillor councillor
vasquez
thank you mayor thank you mr padam
you have a question on the
the eligibility review process and how
that
that impacts the process moving forward
so in the ideal world with the
eligibility review process and the
sample eligibility checklist would that
be something that would be published
publicly along with the rfp
so that applicants would know
exactly what would deem them
eligible or ineligible
would that be the the preferred way to
communicate with potential applicants
mr mayor counselors yes ideally that
would be the best way to approach this
the cfr 200 the interim rule the
compliance guide the rfp
it's it's a tremendous amount of
information to be taken in
and it would be ideal if any rfp put out
spelled out the criteria that would
specifically deem them eligible versus
not
and even if there's going to be a second
set of review to consider now that
you're eligible now we'll look at the
content for example and determine from
that point what the funding might look
like you know there might even be a
two-part
aspect to that but as far as determining
eligibility it would be ideal to have
that information included in the rfp
initially so the applicants know what to
expect in city staff or doing the review
process will be comparing basically
apples to apples at that point
thank you mr pereira and i do ask that
because if we are to now have a
eligibility review checklist but use
existing applications that were
submitted without prior knowledge to
that checklist
it seems to me that you would have
potential applicants that would be
ineligible before they received the
information of what that checklist
looked like and so although we're
correcting our own internal process
externally if applicants didn't know
what that checklist was prior where
they're they're being judged on
information that they still didn't have
prior to us developing that checklist
so
what are your thoughts on on moving
forward in in that process
mr mayor counselors i agree
however all applicants were still
pointed to the same reference documents
our review results are basically it's
it's again an overwhelming amount of
information
and we cannot confirm that all three of
those individuals looked at the same
items and used the same parameters to
make their determination
if we were to create that now yes it's
true the the applicants would not have
had that information in advance but they
did have access to all the resources
that staff used during that review
process
the end result might end up being
exactly the same as it is today
it may not but it may be exactly the way
it is today
the result of our audit is basically to
let you all know we cannot confirm that
it was appropriate or consistently
applied because we don't have that
criteria to use to go back and and
basically validate the results
sure thank you miss but i i completely
understand that and in the sample
eligibility eligibility checklist that
we received i believe for members of the
public
uh
you know there's there's a lot of yes or
no questions i don't know that this is
what our checklist would look like
internally if we were to adopt one
but to me that would make it a lot
easier to apply knowing that you were
checking all those yes boxes versus
reading a notice in the federal register
with a whole lot of information that
didn't clearly spell out the city's
process but
either way it seems like we would be in
on a
similar playing field whether you know
we restart the process or we actually
continue as as is given that applicants
were given equal information before
um so there is a level of equality there
that
seems fair to me so thank you mr thank
you
okay so let me ask you a couple
questions i think all my counselors have
asked so
viola um
i guess i want to go back to
a very
a mentor of mine in 1993 when i first
took office
not as mayor but when i first took
office was was to stay away from
procurement and personnel so i did i
know nothing really about those two
so i really don't know a lot about this
but i do have a question
so in the past when we go out
to purchase something i mean i'm going
to be setting the agenda
and some of these we may have a purchase
that we're going to purchase something
the typical process it goes through alex
how does that go who how does it go how
does the
the current the way we when we do go out
for a bid how does it currently work
does it go to through alex liu and his
team or or how does that work mr mayor
and counselors that is correct and i
know uh leanne demouche and alex lou are
here today and i'd invite them to come
up and explain the process but in
general when we do have an rfp
it does uh go through the purchasing
department in in certain respects and
possibly all respects to help guide that
purchasing process then
my question would be why did we go why
did we go from what it usually is to
natalie green and her team i guess
mr mayor counselors i don't have an
answer to that i cannot speak to why we
decided to go this direction okay so i'm
just going to turn the efo yeah
[Music]
this is a federal grant it's a little
different than our normal procurement uh
i mean i don't think any of us have
dealt with offer in the past natalie has
extensive uh
background in managing federal grants
and uh working with our non-profits and
she manages the tel shore fund grants
and so um we essentially have this
process in place
for the way we administer grants
internally
and so this is the closest this is
closer in my opinion
to the process that was presented from
from staff using national green and the
process we do we use to administer
grants in our community
it's closer to this arpa process than
than we felt that we you know our normal
procurement process going through the
purchasing manager
and
again if you were to ask me
if we were to do it again i'd come right
back with the same process that we we
proposed to you
um
okay well that's fine that let me ask
a couple more questions viola and i need
a little bit of clarification
early and i didn't quite write it down
correctly but you said something about
or i heard something that
if natalie sits on the committee can can
she or can't she vote i i i wasn't sure
about that it was on a three-person
committee
and something about must have all three
yeses do you recall it just you just
said that a little while ago what can
you restate again that please absolutely
mr mary uh marin councillor
what the ordinance says give me just a
second here
flip to that section of the procurement
code
okay
so it's in procurement code
24-123 that outlines the selection
advisory committee known as the sac what
we normally follow
for a general rfp process
section 24123 letter d states the city's
purchasing manner manager or designee
shall serve as staff coordinator for the
selection advisory committee i confirmed
with mr liu that as
in this position
as the staff coordinator for the sac he
is a non-voting member he does not
participate
in the review process or the
determination process for anything
that's come before the sac
within the process or the eligibility
determination process here
sm apply which was an electronic system
was used to record
the review and the comments from the
three-person committee that committee
was comprised of natalie green amy
basford johnson and jonathan and his
last name is escaping me
he was uh thank you he was hired as a
consultant to assist with the process
all three of those individuals reviewed
the 21 applications all three of them
entered notes into the system
and the end result was marked by either
it's a thumbs up or a thumbs down
indicating a yes or no vote
to move the project forward
they needed to have three yeses in order
to move that project forward so
unanimous all three had to be unanimous
correct if there was one or two no's the
project did not move forward to the
nine-person committee to be reviewed and
considered for funding
were you able to determine
where that
these three people voted
yes all three to move it forward
yes mr mayor councillors of the nine
applications that were deemed ineligible
and therefore not moved forward
five of those had two no votes and one
yes
and um the remaining four had four
excuse me three no votes so four of them
were unanimous the other five it was a
two to one vote and therefore it did not
move forward
okay but
one of the questions was
that if natalie was acting as the
coordinator she was not allowed to vote
according to her procurement policy here
she would have been designated as the
purchasing manager and would serve as a
staff coordinator mr liu explained that
as a staff coordinator he does not
participate in that voting or review
process he's only there as a resource to
the committee who does make the decision
in this case natalie did oversee the
project as well as participate in that
three-person committee that decided
eligibility so if we
had
hindsight we would have added one more
person
yet mr mayor counselor yes that is
correct we could have done that
to make it because you have to have
three
and theoretically based on what you told
what i heard
if she's the coordinator she's not
supposed to be participating in the
votes mr made that was correct
and was there any criteria for the nine
person was it just a majority vote or
did all nine have to vote all yes
things of that nature are just the
majority
mr mayor councillors this review did not
go beyond the eligibility determination
our scope was to look at eligible
eligibility processes
however i can speak a little bit to what
took place
the document that i indicated here at
the beginning there was an 11 step
selection and evaluation process
that applied more so to that nine person
committee
the scoring of it there was a scoring
matrix for them there was not for the
eligibility
this committee
followed the same process by entering
their comments and their determination
into the system
but they also scored each application
there was a variety of criteria that
needed to be evaluated a scoring matrix
that needed to be applied all of their
scores were tallied the highest and
lowest scores were eliminated leaving
there would be no bias in the decision
there was a great process outlined for
that second phase we did not have that
same process outlined for the
eligibility determination
okay so the other question that i was
going to ask you and you're welcome to
share your opinion on this is
earlier you heard
my colleagues say well maybe we should
just apply the criteria to the current
applicants
that's one option
i'm think and then great and then grade
them
but then i'm thinking if if we do that
then anyone who had direct contact and
as i mentioned to you
[Music]
lee
wise sergey
in fact she i believe they just dropped
off something else again
dropped off a notebook
and i have to tell you i don't normally
see a notebook of that
volume
usually when someone
might be
concerned that's usually
[Music]
nothing that
that that significant
so if we were to do that i would think
that even though they made it they
didn't win and and they didn't we didn't
really have any conversation because i
really didn't have a conversation i just
saw the email when i saw the notebook i
said you know what this is
my instinct told me that we need to do
something about this
i would think though that would still as
defined by the direct contact in email
would disqualify them
and probably
i would think that anyone who had any
contact whether they came up to council
or not i mean when they did
are all disqualified so then in essence
we've reduced that
applicant pool
i would think that
the probably the only thing to do would
be this in my opinion would be to start
over with a new with the same process
but with the criteria that you've come
forward
however i'm going to reserve comment
until as i know she's next on the arpa
rfp process and that's natalie and it's
possible
you know that she has some of this
information that maybe you couldn't find
so
i'd like to bring her forward if there's
no other further questions of
viola then bring natalie forward and let
her
respond to some of these concerns and
then council makes the decision what
they want to do
good enough
okay
thank you viola uh that's a pretty
amazing information to provide us in
such a short time
i have another question for you oh i'm
sorry you have a question yes i do have
violence
thank you again miss pereira
um
so my question is irrespective of
the source of the funding
irrespective of the source of the
the award
this being arpa as opposed to a private
corporation or another entity
why would the rfp
process be different
and why was it different
mr mayor counselors i can't answer that
question i don't have the
a good understanding of how we came to
this determination i was only looking at
the process after that determination had
been made
but i can get that information for you
and include that in the report
thank you very much thank you miss peter
thank you mayor
okay thank you violet
you're not going anywhere right you're
going to no i'll be here okay
so next we're going to have is the arpa
rfp process and natalie green will be
presenting
i'm taller than viola excuse me
good afternoon mr mayor members of
council natalie green for the record
i will be covering the rfp process i'm
specifically going to focus around the
eligibility review process since that's
the largest concern
i have two disclaimers for you the first
is one that i'm consolidating hundreds
of pages of regular of regulations
professional experience into a 20-minute
presentation so i won't cover everything
i've asked christine to pass out the
powerpoint one because it's very
technical in nature so i'm not going to
read all the slides the other thing so
you can take notes if you have questions
my second disclaimer is if you will have
to put up with my
bad jokes and
you know
examples and metaphors so i apologize in
advance for those and the only ones
who's obligated to laugh at my bad jokes
is my staff because they're paid too
so the interim final rule which i'll
refer to as the rule throughout the
process and again i'm only going to
focus on one
of the statutory eligible uses because
that's what the rfp covered and more
specifically i'm going to focus on its
negative economic impacts so when you
read the interim rule when it talks
about responding to covet 19 in the
public health emergency it really talks
about disease
disease mitigation
prevention vaccination so the rfp and
its scope was around its negative
economic impacts and so
again
if we only had to consider this at face
value you wouldn't have a 151-page
document around eligibility
so the overall
our overarching arpa requirements and
again
this was the decision framework for
determining eligibility so if there was
one slide you had to listen to it's
probably this one and this will be
applicable regardless of what council
decides to do with this process right
so when you consider
all
the projects that applied you first have
to determine and i call this my three
factor analysis although i'm going to
call it my four factor analysis and i'll
tell you why
you have to consider whether economic
harm exists
so you have to determine if the intended
beneficiaries experienced a documentable
harm and we're going to go through all
the different types of projects and how
we would different determine those you
also have to determine
if
the way the funding is being used
is responding to that identified
economic harm and is it related and
reasonable reasonably proportional so
this is where you get my uh jerry
mcguire speech right so show me the
money so show me what the funding is
being used for how is it being spent
what is it going towards and does that
respond to the economic harm
so again i can tell council that i'm
flying to the moon and back right but if
i'm not buying rocket ship parts and i'm
buying a green screen photoshop and a
cameraman i'm not really flying to the
moon so you have to evaluate
again that economic harm exists that
it's related
it identifi it responds to that economic
harm and it's reasonable well and
proportional and we'll get into that as
well
so in the compliance guide it gives you
a non-exclusive list of eligibility
projects
but again
you have to
it goes through each of those things and
all the considerations you have to do it
also poses the question just because you
can should you should you fund something
should you fund something if it's not
catalyzing a broader economic recovery
rebuilding or providing equitable growth
so when it comes to small business
assistance programming again the
intended beneficiary needs to document
that there's economic hardship
the other thing is that economic
hardship has to be due to the pandemic
and you should
consider your local economic conditions
so if a project was around business
expansion and recruitment can you say in
this economic climate that a business is
expanding experienced economic harm
maybe
new interrupt inter entrepreneurship
programming
again if you structured it in a very
specific way with a specific targeted
industry
that experienced significant job loss
with high rates of employment in a
qualified sentence track you might be
able to justify an entrepreneurship
program
household assistance
again this one's pretty self-explanatory
it's around services that get financial
assistance to people who need it most uh
you do have to consider
the extent of the harm and whether the
response is proportional to that harm
and again the rule was kind enough to
give us some presumed benefit categories
so if you can and this is the document
documentable determination so if you can
determine that the household was
unemployed experience food or housing
insecurity or as low to moderate income
then we get to presume that they
experienced harm now the consideration
in the programming is again are we
responding to that harm
and is it reasonable and proportional
i'm going to cover cash assistance in
the next slide only because it's called
out within the actual regulation so when
we cover cash
cash assistance programming
again you can focus on those presumed
benefit categories and then you have to
determine that the cash assistance is
reasonable proportional to the negative
economic impact so no no ten thousand
dollar month checks right they have to
be something that was already similar to
what was distributed under the cares act
or by the federal government or through
some criteria analysis that the city or
the program has set out
aid to impacted industries so when
considering
programs that claim tourism as potential
use
you have to consider that one you can
help businesses you can help attractions
you can also help business districts but
they had to be operating prior and
affected by again the covet pandemic and
you can also help other
industries other than tourism but you
have to compare that economic harm
to tourism travel and hospitality
and then you have to consider and make
sure that it's not a long-term economic
or industrial train
trend so if it's one of those industries
that was already being killed by
millennials then no soup for you right
no arpa funding
so disproportionate negative
economic impacts
so the federal government recognizes
that
there was already economic disparities
that existed for
uh specific populations and communities
so when we discuss the race track of
equity we know that there were people
who are car lengths behind the starting
line so when we
as a result they gave us three areas
that we could do investment when it came
to arpa
the first is going to be investments in
housing and neighborhood services so we
could address homelessness we can
address affordable housing and
development you could do housing
vouchers housing navigation
so i want to clarify that when it comes
to these three particular items there
was very clear activities that we can do
so you cannot compare apples to apples
and oranges to oranges because it just
doesn't work like that
and i'll cover all the reasoning why
so you could also address educational
disparities so you can do new and
expanded or enhanced early learning
activities
you could have evidence-based
educational services evidence-based
social and emotional mental health
programs you could help the school
districts
the third area investment was new or
expanded high quality child care home
visits and child welfare
now if those are the only things i had
to consider
then yes many of the projects would be
eligible however under the guide and
under the rule it specifically states
that the city and its sub-recipients are
the first line of defense and
responsible for ensuring the arpa awards
are not used for ineligible purposes
so in all instances the city should
review the uniform guidance requirements
as applicable to the city's use of arpa
funds and arpa-funded projects
so that's going to be the
super circular
these are all the other program
requirements that we signed on
and said we were going to comply with
when we requested the funding i'm not
going to cover these we could be here
for three weeks if i tried to cover them
all so i'm primarily going to focus on
the ones that were used to determine
eligibility
so the compliance guide outlines these
i'm not going to cover all of these
because i'm going to cover them in
in the actual 2 cfr 200 and these were
covered at length within the compliance
guide which was attached to
your last packet
so under 2 cfr 200 b through d are the
administrative uh requirements e
and f are the cost principles and audits
and um again like i said this is a
consolidation of all the ombuds so
um
let's see
uh definitions i'm not going to read
these but the only thing i wanted to
point out is uh non-federal entity is us
as the local government it's the
non-profit
as
either a recipient or sub-recipient and
then again we in this definition are
acting as the recipient of the funding
from the department of treasury and then
the non-profits are acting as a
sub-recipient and the only reason i
wanted to
cover the definitions is because i
wanted to explain the applicability so
in all instances non-federal entities
must comply with the requirements
whether they are the recipient or
sub-recipient of the federal award so to
cfr 200 flows down all the way to the
bottom
so
these obligations do not go away whether
this rfp
stays or doesn't stay
and then of course anywhere the
regulations as must it indicates a
requirement and anywhere indicates
should or may is a best practice
or a recommended approach
so under pre-federal requirements again
i'm mostly going to cover post-federal
award requirements and then our ongoing
obligations the only thing i wanted to
point out in the pre-federal award
requirements is that we have to have
grant agreements you should have clear
goals and objectives you are mandated to
have a
merit review process
with the objective of selecting
recipients that are most likely to be
successful in delivering the results
and then i'm going to cover review of
risk in the next slide and then we also
have to review
suspension and department status
so this review risk i covered
at the time that we presented the
development of the rfp so the city is
required to have a framework for
evaluating the risk before award
so we are legally obligated to mitigate
those risks and if at the risk review we
can anticipate non-compliance we should
not be funding projects
so again we have to evaluate the
applicant's ability to effectively
implement statutory regulatory or other
requirements imposed on the non-federal
entity
under post award federal requirements
the first thing is internal control so
we as a city have to have internal
controls the sub-recipients have to have
internal controls we have to have
internal controls for reviewing their
internal controls
program income good in theory terrible
in practice in cdbg we don't let any of
our sub-recipients generate program
income so if they do it has to be
returned to the city it needs to be
tracked it needs to be spent on the same
eligible uses that it created it if it's
generated while there's an active grant
agreement
they need it first and first out hits so
if they generate program income during
the current application period they
spend their money first before they draw
down anything further from the grant
insurance requirements
again
if they do capital assets and capital
expenditures which i'll get into next
they have to cover
the value of those equipment and
supplies and building improvements equal
or more than the investment of the
federal funds
and then all your real property
equipment and supplies you have to have
policies and procedures for its use for
who uses it what does it get used for
for its maintenance so
for example the city of las cruces we
purchased a truck with cdbg there's only
six people in the entire city that can
drive that truck for a cdbg eligible
purpose so if
efo or mr mayor wanted to borrow the
truck
for something else i would be legally
obligated to say no
uh real property
uh and equipment again you have to
consider that they have to be used for
the purpose in which they were intended
to be purchased perpetually it doesn't
go away and we'll cover why in the next
slide
so
who remembers downtown bathrooms
we're funded with cdbg funding the city
is choosing to demolish those
bathrooms so if you weren't replacing
them with equivalent bathroom facilities
hud would expect that the city is going
to pay back that funding
for those bathrooms thankfully we're
rebuilding them
supplies
i'm not going to cover it's the same as
real property and equipment but the
thing i really want to emphasize is the
property trust relationship because i
know this came up
so
this we as the city
are holding in trust for the
beneficiaries any property or equipment
or intangible property that's acquired
or improved with the federal funding so
we have to guarantee and certify
that that perpetual use is going to stay
forever and ever until we decide to
dispose and pay back the department of
treasury so as such we have to record
any liens
we have to
do a number of things so all our
affordable housing projects and all our
cdbg projects have land use restrictive
covenant agreements
we also file
liens that if they transfer ownership we
get paid back
so uh
anything
we've improved different buildings i
think the last one
it's very similar to the bathroom
situation but i'll move on
post federal award requirements one
not only are we subject to the
procurement standards outlined in the
two cfr all our sub recipients are also
outlined
uh to those procurement standards so we
will have to review how they're spending
their funding and if they were
procured through this process there are
conflict of interest provisions
so we have a policy
that uh that will need to be amended to
add arpa funding so we get conflict of
interest
forms from all of our nonprofit partners
their board of directors their staff our
staff
anyone within the economic development
who's signing a form potentially signing
a paycheck we get those conflict of
interest
we also have to have policies around our
performance manage performance and
financial monitoring the expectation
from the department of treasury is that
whoever we give funding to we have a
process to go out every year
to
ensure that they are meeting their
compliance requirements with their
internal controls
again i'm not going to cover all of
these what i really wanted to cover is
the post closeout adjustments and the
continuing responsibilities
so when the city expands all the funding
we are still obligated to the federal
government so they get to come back
at the end of our process and disallow
costs and recover any funds that they
decide were used in a manner that was
not consistent with the interim rule
the other thing i wanted to point out is
again those property management and
disposition requirements they don't go
away when you finish spending the money
so the insurance coverage the real
property the equipment the supplies and
that property trust relationship stays
in place
perpetually
so if we know that a non-profit was
going to use funds to remediate a
privately owned facility that we can't
guarantee that property trust
relationship we shouldn't be funding
them
again cost principles i'm not going to
go through all of these the two i want
to cover are factors affecting
allowability of costs and the reasonable
costs
the first
and this this really speaks
um
one to the eligibility but it also
speaks to the scoring criteria who
looked at those budgets those line item
budgets so in order to determine whether
the costs are eligible eligible
you have to consider a number of factors
and so
in our world we call it radar right
reasonable allowable documentable
allocable and reimbursable by the
federal funds so they have to be
necessary and reasonable and how do you
determine reasonability is a prudent
person test right so would
a prudent person
spend that amount of funding for that
activity so you have to ask yourself are
the nine people that reviewed the
budgets the scoring budgets are the
scoring eligibility people prudent
people
i questioned some of them but you never
know
i think if you were to ask my husband
he'd tell you i'm not prudent but i like
to think of myself as prudent
so you also have to conform to any
limitations or exclusions set forth in
the arpa guidelines right
so if it's in the federal award you
cannot
and it's an exclusion you cannot spend
it even if it's allowable under 2 cfr
200.
it also has to be consistent so this is
where i covered in our last presentation
where you have to apply them uniform to
both federally funded and non-federal
funded projects
and then they also have to have
consistent treatment when it comes to
direct or indirect costs so
that's that
copier example so if i'm billing my
copier as an indirect cost i'm not going
to then bill that
activity to this other grant as a direct
cost and then of course it has to follow
generally accepted accounting principles
it has to be
adequately documented
and it has to be a cost that's incurred
during the approved budget period
audit requirements the only thing i
really wanted to cover in the audit
requirements
was
that
any agency that spends more than 750 000
of federal funding in a single
uh fiscal year will be subject to their
single audit or a program specific audit
and that includes the city so it's not a
matter of when we will be audited or if
we it's a matter of when we will be
audited not if right we will be audited
around
this process
and in terms of management decisions
again we have an obligation to issue
managements to non-profits who are
non-compliant and then if our external
auditors find out that we're
non-compliant then
the other federal programs have a right
to issue management decisions across
all the grants
so i'll return to the evaluation process
so council adopted a resolution
uh on september 7th one it designated
me as the person purchasing manager for
questions and technical assistance which
i offered
some took it some didn't we had a
competitive proposal process there was
21 applications submitted for 26 million
dollars the eligibility review committee
which is three scoring members who are
familiar with the interim role with the
compliance guide and with two cfr100
reviewed those projects for eligibility
the arpa review committee then reviewed
the 12 remaining applications and scored
those they scored them individually
presentations from those applicants were
conducted on november third
and then you have ranking and
final recommendations which occurred on
november 9th
as such there was nine projects
recommended for funding i'm not going to
go through them
you'll be considering them at your next
council meeting
and then you have three activities that
were not recommended for funding
and then you have nine applications that
were determined to be not eligible based
on the criteria that i covered
so
if there was one response i had you
cannot apply a uniform decision making
criteria to all the projects it's it
would be extremely difficult unless you
you would have to have
10 different matrixes for every possible
project that was out there small
business because you you got a whole
host these were small business they were
tourism they were impacted industries
they were disproportionate uh
communities so the reasoning
is not consistent that's why we have a
151 pages of interim final rule
to help us with that decision framework
so with that i'll let you guys stand for
discussion
i'm amazed you got through that that
quick
i really am i'm impressed that you did
that natalie that's good
um
well no counselor vasquez has his line
on thank you mayor thank you natalie
wow yeah i'm surprised as well
um i think
we could get through presentations a lot
quicker if you just deliver them all for
a mile
natalie thank you again i just have a
few questions um and and first i just
want to say i appreciate your area of
expertise especially dealing with cdbg
and hud funding and
federal funds that come into the city uh
for many years
um so i have a question just around the
interpretation of economic harm
i think this is one of the overarching
arpa requirements listed on slide number
three
and
and perhaps um
could be you know was or or could be
used as one of the
um
depending on how that's interpreted uh
how
how the scoring or how the eligibility
review team decided that certain
projects weren't eligible or not but i'm
wondering if you can comment a little
bit more as to
the thought process between determining
economic harm
and then responding to that economic
harm within certain applications
mr mayor councillor vasquez when you
consider whether economic harm exists
you have to really consider that end
user beneficiary and it's really again a
case-by-case basis on who the projects
and really the onus is on the
application right we went off the
information that they included in the
application
and that was a question who are you
serving what are you doing how does that
respond to the negative economic impact
so i would argue again that the onus is
not on staff to make the case
it's really on the applicant and did
they make the case
for that negative economic impact and
their response to it
thank you that that is helpful
um
and then regarding the council
resolution on september 7th uh you
mentioned that as part of that council
resolution process
that was the mechanism under which
council designated
you as the procurement officer for this
project is that correct
mr mayor council rascus i don't have the
page number but if you look in the
packet it specifically outlines
me as the person if there's questions or
if they need assistance with the rfp
process then they should contact me so
oh we'll just say that's the
okay the determining but did the
resolution say
natalie green or there by four or
whereas natalie green will be the
purchasing manager no
okay that that makes sense and i
appreciate you bringing that to our
attention and something for uh for us as
council um
to to look at closely in the future when
it comes to designating the uh right you
know using the right language to
designate a procurement manager or
procurement officer for a particular
process like this i think that's on us
as well so thank you nedley
and the only thing
sorry if i was going to say something
else mr mayor councillor vasquez again
this rfp process was not intended to
replicate the sac it was very much
intended to wreck them to replicate the
health and human services process it's a
very similar um the only difference is
that we generally have a letter of
intent process to review eligibility up
front in the essence of time we didn't
include that process this time and
we'll we'll do it next time
thank you natalie and i do um appreciate
you saying that i know um council
expressed a strong desire to be able to
get these funds out quickly in response
uh to the need in our community uh from
from what this funding is in response to
so i um
i appreciate you saying that uh
my last question here is a run around
the eligibility review process um
uh you know at any point where were you
notified or did you know that as the
procurement manager um that you were
essentially not eligible to kind of be
one of the members of the eligibility
committee or
have we not gone through this process
before and so that just wasn't made
clear
mr mayor counselor vasquez i was not
aware of that requirement
i've done hrps i've done city of cdbg we
have always reviewed eligibility prior
to
the application moving to scoring so
it's it's not a deviation of any other
duties that we we haven't already had
so we'll we will be evaluating our
health and human services process
because we want to make sure that
process is in compliance
i won't get into that today but
we'll need to make that determination as
well okay thank you natalie uh and
lastly just around the split votes for
the eligibility review for certain
applicants
um what might you attribute the split
votes to when it came to
you know these overarching arpa
requirements and how they were
interpreted by the committee
why might some members have voted yes
and others know whether was a particular
sticking point was it deciding the
economic harm piece or
how subjective was that process mr mayor
council vasquez i really can't speak to
that because each
committee member reviewed it
individually so we've always been a
big proponent when we do the health
related public services process that
there is no collusion behind
closed doors right that each person
evaluates on a one-to-one
and we're not talking
outside of the process that's not
happening publicly in front of
of people so i evaluated it made my
votes and comments the other two
committee members made their votes and
their comments we didn't get together
and talk shop i think maybe if we had
you'd have unanimous eligibility
determinations but
again i can't really speak to what the
other committee's
members were thinking at the time one
because one is on extended medical leave
and the other is no longer employed by
the city because they have a other
employment
so
well thank you natalie those are all the
questions i have and i really do
appreciate um
understanding this process a lot better
and i think when council asked for some
clarity on how this process was
undertaken
this is exactly what i envisioned for us
to be reviewing today so thank you ned
thank you man thank you counselor
mayor pro tim yes thank you mayor thank
you so much natalie for your
presentation and all your work it's much
much appreciated
um on this particular slide and sort of
following up
from the questions that councilor
vasquez asked
in reference to these requirements did i
hear you say that
okay
did you define economic harm exists or
what that means
did the federal government give a
definition yes so mr mayor council or
mr mayor mayor protegra so within each
particular category the federal
government so
small business assistance household need
each of those had considerations around
economic harm so when it came to
disproportionate populations
and direct household assistance you got
some presumed benefit categories those
presumed benefit categories don't
necessarily exist for small business
determinations and impacted industries
what they do give you within the 151
pages is different analysis
on each of those projects and what we as
a
local government should consider when
funding those projects they also gave us
a cheat sheet right they gave us a
non-exclusive list of potential projects
but there was still those
considerations so
you would have to look at the interim
rule and they're titled it tells you
small business assistance there's three
or four paragraphs around that
that
if you look at direct household
assistance there's a couple pages on
what's eligible what's not eligible what
you should consider
and again the interim rule the
compliance guide and the two cfrs were
all cited within the rfp
the program considerations were also
cited and spelled out so what's in
not this slide
but these other slides are on the rfp
under program considerations
not sure if that answers your question
it does i appreciate that natalie now in
terms of the rubric the rubric that was
used
you use these particular requirements
and then they would have to you attach
scoring to that the matrix
talk to me about that um mr mayor
councillor gondara so within the sm
apply system we could see the
applications
now was there an exact rubric that i was
going to check off economic harm
no
that did not exist
i would chalk that up to professional
experience right i know i can look at a
project
and i can determine whether it's
eligible or not eligible under
2 cfr 200
i read the arpa guidelines multiple
times i still go back i read them again
in preparation of this meeting
and then in terms again i'm not going to
speak to the other committees because
they're not here to speak for himself
but i would suspect that amy
who has years and years of grant
experience had the same
professional experience as well right
she can read an application
she can determine whether it's eligible
or not eligible based on her
professional experience
um
i appreciate that natalie i'm not
worried about you three i'm worried
about those nine that don't have the
kind of experience that you do so i
would assume and i would recom i would
say
they need a rubric with a matrix that
identifies very specifically right and
attaching a scoring i mean i've done
this before in my previous work it's
difficult
and i didn't have that much experience
when i started but at the end right you
you're able to look at those like you
are right like you do i'm not sure that
the nine had experience such as yours so
you're telling me there was not a rubric
specific to these items that you were
looking at
and a scoring matrix mr mayor mayor
pretend there was a scoring matrix for
the scoring committee there was not a
scoring matrix for the non-scoring
eligibility review project
okay that's it thank you mayor
councillor flores and councilman cuomo
thank you mr mayor and thank you again
natalie
i too am really
hovering over the quote economic harm
exists
unquote
and on page three same page
whether this harm was caused or made
worse by covid19 public health emergency
i
didn't review the applications and i
wasn't on any committees so i don't know
what the application stated
but
i do know that in one that was not
selected by you all
i don't understand how
[Music]
and i don't want to mention i just don't
understand
how
these these blanket
points bullets
can explain how an organization
[Music]
can be
so
essential in someone's life
and
everybody as far as i could see as far
as it's just you know empirical data you
know a blind man could see pardon the
expression i'm sorry that was
horrible everyone i think can understand
that
[Music]
economic harm
exists
when anything
is impeded so all of the
the the organizations that that i see
listed whether they were
selected or not
were worsened uh
economically and the reason is because
people who would ordinarily
engage in those
activities or whatever a lot of a lot of
places had to close down
and those places were are places where
people go
and
and i don't want to mention the
organizations but i do know that when
especially children when children are
engaged in certain activities
and they have a place to go whether it's
a place whether it's you know somewhere
in the city and i have to speak very
generically
that does affect someone's mental health
i know that
i know
that
people
who have been
subject to
well are so in fear of being going out
even to the market with a mask and
taking all the precautions
um their behavior has changed i have
friends who
haven't left their homes
and
and their behavior is
unexplainable to me
insofar as that horrible fear
and
they're not going out they're not
going to the places they should be going
to the ordinarily would be going to
where they would have a healthy
interchange with the rest of the world
so um i i think and i think this is
something that uh
councillor vasquez touched on and mayor
pro tem gandara touched on is that i
don't think there's anyone on this list
quite frankly
that doesn't qualify
and
if these are the factors
that are being looked at
the economic harm exists because people
are frozen they're not they're not
participating in everyday activities
and everyday activities is an indicator
of
how well people function
and contribute to everything in life and
co including the economy
so
um
i i
i i don't i i think that you were
trying very hard to explain
that even apples to apples aren't apples
to apples and even oranges to oranges
aren't oranges to oranges and i agree
with that
to the extent that
economic harm could be found
as a fallout as a consequence of covid
and mr mayor councillor florida and i
know that you had
these different
things to go by
but i'm still sticking to the point that
irrespective of where this money was
coming from the protocols of any rfp
should have been followed
and that brings into question in my
opinion
the entire process
and i know that you've worked very hard
on this uh miss green there's nothing
personal here but after the um
everything that was presented by ms
pereira
it seems to me that
um there's a lot of
there are a lot of
things that we have to go back to
my big concern at this point and this is
probably for the attorney
vega brown
and for miss pereira
and maybe even arpa itself may kick in
and say something about this is
uh whether all of these uh entities have
been um
dealt with unfairly
and whether
they are in
some peril
at this point of not receiving any arpa
money
because i think that the process is
tainted
and i don't know
how
we can really get out of this
and i think it will take probably more
than two or three or four weeks to
really understand all of it
i think that
irrespective of how
objective we want to be as human beings
we necessarily bring with ourselves that
subjective experience
and that subjective interpretation of
what we think something is
and it has to do with perspective and it
has to do with perception has to do with
personal
experiences so
i'm really worried about this mr city
manager mr pealey i'm really worried
about this mr
mayor and
i hope that our city attorney vega brown
and ms berea come back with
ways that we can really approach this
and move on and not lose the arpa money
i'm worried about that
thank you thank you councillor i will
say this after council members have
their say i have a few questions that
might clear up
or at least
attempt to answer some of the concerns
that you have
so let me just reserve comment on that
so we have next
councillor bin coleman just responding
oh sure yes i'm sorry thank you mr mayor
the only thing i was going to respond to
is i agree with you councillor flores
that many of the organizations can say
economic harm exists for their intended
beneficiaries and if that was the only
thing i had to consider they would all
be eligible but it's not how were they
spending the money and is that
expenditure
responding to the economic harm because
you will find if you evaluate
again show me the money right so i'm not
going to do the whole jerry maguire show
me the money but show me the money
where were they spending the funding and
i assure you it was not on the intended
beneficiaries
okay so let me go to council sub and
cuomo and then um okay counselor
thanks mayor um and thank you so much
natalie i feel like you were able to go
through that presentation because you
eat breathe sleep all of these so um
thank you for your expertise
um actually i
given miss vera's presentation um and
some of the recommendations she's laying
out in the process and what natalie just
laid out i'm a lot less concerned um
you know i'm not saying there i didn't i
you know i pointed to miss badass
presentation and just said like felt
like some things fell through the cracks
i shouldn't have and we need better
processes for that that is very clear
and i'm glad that this conversation is
happening now before funds have been
allocated i think that's really
important but i am actually um a lot
less concerned given this presentation
um natalie and these go perhaps hand in
hand with mayor partem's questions i
just needed further clarification on my
part the three people committee
um
were they selected because of their
knowledge on everything you just laid
out
mr mayor councillor bancomo that's
correct so uh as you know amy is running
the internal opera process i was
assigned the external our process so we
worked together
and then uh amy also hired a consultant
to help specifically with the arpa all
of the artboard process so yes
okay thank you and these categories
small business assistants household
assistants et cetera et cetera those
were laid out by the federal government
right they're not your
councillor bencomo that's correct so all
of those are in the interim uh final
role okay thank you and then i just had
a question a curious question on the
auditing natalie you said
that
the nonprofit would have to have an
audit requirement if they receive
more than 750 thousands of federal funds
uh mr american councilor been coma it's
actually the expenditure of federal
funds in a single year okay so there's
two different there's a program specific
and then a single audit
so
if it's uh
i'm going to have to try and remember i
might get them confused but if they
spend more than 750 000 in federal funds
for a from a single source then it's a
program specific audit but if they spend
750 from various federal uh
sources then you have a
single a single audit okay and either
way it'll evaluate again all those
internal controls all those policies and
procedures
all it'll test all the financial
components
and then again we are obligated as a
city to go out and do
a similar level of review for each of
those nonprofits that we award funding
to on an annual basis
so that's that's another component but
we'll worry about that after
so that actually part of that was part
of my question because i know in new
mexico and let me know if this is
different because it's federal funds
right but in new mexico
their audit requirements exist for
non-profits if they re if their revenues
are 500 000
and over on a yearly basis
does that not apply in this audit
requirement
uh mr mayor
councillor bencomo so the state may have
some different regulations for each of
the non-profits
i do have a little if i can get to it
again all
uh there was one thing in this the
so if the city has a more restrictive
policy than the federal government
they're going to check that we followed
our own policy versus
their policy
but again those
sorry there's a lot of slides
and then i was going to address
something else that was brought up as
part of the internal audit which was a
conflict of interest i did just want to
point out within the sm apply
reviewers could flag if an application
if they had a conflict of interest
within
uh the review process so if they saw an
application and determined they had a
conflict they would have they would flag
it's a conflict of interest and it would
notify the purchasing manager
but in terms of the order of authority
with all the funding again you're going
to have your general
generally accepted accounting principles
then you have your congressional
statutory items and then you have your
office of management and budget and
things that come out of them so the
super circular and then you have the
actual arpa guidelines and then you
would have any city policies that then
take effect so that's sort of your order
of authority when it comes to different
processes
okay thank you
and then just my last question so
natalie when
you
your department and the city do grants
out of telstra fund
the process that has been laid out here
is similar to what it looks like for
those grants
mr mayor councillor ben como that's
that's correct it's fairly similar
except your board is a council appointed
board
again we do do conflict of interest
forms that happens at the actual meeting
very similar to this process right you
say you have a conflict or not conflict
but the process essentially is the same
it's it's not much different okay um
there's a few different added
layers of components but it's
for all intensive purposes it's the same
okay i appreciate that natalie thank you
thanks mayor
and that process just so you know is
exempt from the procurement code and so
that's why it's allowed to be that way
oh can you tell us why
mr mayor councillor bin como in the p
code there are various exceptions one of
them is for the provision of poverty
programs and for sick and indigent so
they are exempt from the procurement
process
but they are not exempt from the
contract requirements so if we execute a
contract over 75 000 they still have to
come back for council review but they
are not required to follow
the exact procurement process outlined
in uh
chapter 24 of the munich code okay
thanks natalie i appreciate that
okay thank you all right so let me just
ask you a couple questions natalie
so all the information that you gave is
it fair to say that the applicants were
given some sort of copy of all the
requirements
mr mayor
that is correct so within the rfp not
only did they have program
considerations they had requirements
they had links to the interim rule to do
cfrp 200. they also had to sign a
required assurances forms very similar
to all those other requirements
so they they they signed and testified
that they understood what they were
applying for and it did outline to cfr
200. okay that's fine so and i think you
you kind of touched on this with
councilman cuomo that this was similar
to
and i think the earlier it was
similar to the health and human services
committee when we give out
certain funding to non-profits and so
does that have a three-member board on
it
and then if they move it forward to the
to i guess a nine member board or
mr mayor that does not have a nine
member board it has a one person board
so that would be me as acting or
generally it used to be me acting as a
purchasing manager
the reason we selected a three-member
board in this case is
their federal regulations they're
subject to interpretation so we wanted
to make sure that a single person was
not misinterpreting regulations so we
selected three
people who were familiar with the
internal and the two safer 200s to make
that decision
together so you feel earlier it was
brought up that
under the the current rfp process
if you're the program director or
coordinator you're not really allowed to
vote
but you feel that under these
circumstances you would be allowed to
still participate and vote
mr mayor i will defer that to you all to
decide that again
i just wanted to
see what if there was something that i
was missing you need someone who
understands federal regulations and you
need someone who's probably read the
interim rule more than a couple times to
to help determine that eligibility
so could i have coached a staff person
possibly but not my staff because my
staff is all grant funded to work on the
grants that they're
paid to work on so there was no one else
within my purview of supervision that
could have done this process i
understand and that's probably why you
hired mr macias
i didn't
i'm sorry i said uh i i won't i i think
amy hired him okay well he got hired
okay so it's possible okay so that now
the nine-member committee
is it possible to share with us who was
on that committee
mr mayor the uh arpa review committee is
made up of various staff members the
first was ikanita mapiao david weir dan
lauterbach kevin wilson lynn gallagher
mandy gus rebecca slaughter shirjana
bazin basniat and will blanchard
okay so basically all city staff then
that's correct mr mayor
all right and so
again i'm going to
go back to
what was brought up earlier
whether or not
as you know when we have a city council
meeting we ask is there any conflict of
interest then you need to disclose it of
course we don't have anyone sign it
and i think you alluded to it that if
they felt that they had a conflict they
could say it
but um
they don't sign anything
they don't when when they get go through
it they don't disclose it and to your
knowledge
none of those nine people
uh
that on the committee have any um have
have any
you know they're not on any of these
boards correct to your mr
mayor so we did not have them sign in
conflict of interest form although again
through the sm apply they could flag a
conflict of interest i will say that one
staff person did disclose a conflict of
interest that was not clear at the
application time it wasn't clear until
there was an actual presentation on that
november 9th meeting staff did evaluate
whether that was a
true conflict or not
but again the process made it so that no
one person
could
influence the process we took the
highest and the lowest scores out so
nobody could tank an application nobody
could give it or i mean they could give
it 100 points but their highest score
was going to be removed anyways
so again
we felt there was mitigating
circumstances and that it was not a true
conflict based on the uh
on the procurement code and the federal
regulations there was not a financial
interest or financial benefit it's just
hey i know that person
in a professional relationship outside
of the city
great and again again i didn't know who
was that on the committee i'm glad to
see that it was all city staff so that
that's good now about my last question
earlier at least i thought i heard that
we can approach this one of two ways
either go back and use existing
applicants
come up with that criteria and apply it
to the applicant so that they can it can
be graded
however
would it be your opinion that those who
have direct contact and that being the
definition as given by the city attorney
even a simple email
would disqualify them
that's one
or
basically when i say start the process
over basically
you close this bit
you do literally what you just did
and and then you have the
the criteria that that
if council wants to incorporate you know
maybe they need to sign a conflict or
not i mean personally
i'm more at ease knowing that the
committee was made up of staff i thought
it was i don't know who it made up okay
so this is good
but getting back to my first question do
you feel
that
that if we were to do the first part of
option a which is um
just apply the criteria to the current
set of applicants and we would have to
exclude those who had any contact
mr mayor i'm not sure what you're asking
me to speculate okay all right well for
example
okay so like for example if we were to
go back and just say okay
staff you know this sounds satisfactory
um
but there are a few things that we
needed to tighten up and just just for
for transparency purposes
do we then go back to the same
applicants
and apply that
criteria or the rubric as mayor pretends
discussing
but then if we do because of those who
had contact with
council even if it's simple email that
they are excluded which leaves from 21
applicants to let's just say 15
applicants
and then just go off those 15 and then
bring back to council
those
those who uh
and and and probably um you know if
council wants to insert some type of
requirement that
that um
yeah i don't i don't know that that's
what i'm trying to get we're looking to
your guidance i mean like i said i'm
for all intents and purposes i'm new
with this and when it comes to selecting
because i just always
made it a point to just stay out of it
but i'm trying to be
um
you know listen to what the public has
to say what concerns were what my
colleagues were what and i have to
apologize you know i couldn't hear that
well when i was traveling and you guys
couldn't hear me when i'm talking and so
this is a lot better than i'm here
to view this
and um so that was my question if i may
meet a counselor and then i'll go to you
so getting back to that
do you feel that they need to be
mr mayor really it's at the discretion
of the council ultimately my job was to
evaluate risk and evaluate eligibility
so
the decisions that the selection
committee made again
and i shared this during the last
presentation it's not personal it's not
a reflection of the organization it's
not even a reflection of their project
some of them have excellent projects
they're just not well suited to federal
funding and they're not well suited to
the opera eligibility projects
um
so
really
it's up to you as a council right
i can say
personally whatever contact email or
whatever was dropped off to me it wasn't
as though i engaged in a conversation
saying okay yeah you know what i think
this is a good
program program unless i'm going to see
to it to get it on here you know that
didn't take place i personally i think
that they would still be allowed to
participate
but again that's what
my colleagues will have to come up with
so counselor photos you had a question
and counselor vasquez yeah well i beg to
differ with you mayor in so far as
the determinations to whether council
decides um what the rules are it's an
rfp process and i think the rfp process
is
is a legal process and perhaps a city
attorney can
enlighten us
but it seems to me that if
there's a
violation of the rfp process and it
states that someone will be an entity
will be
eliminated as a result of that
i don't see that's pretty
clear to me
and
so
ms vega brown attorney vega brown um
can you opine on that or give a clear
analysis on that thing before she does
the city manager wanted to say something
then
jennifer oh you know it probably
wouldn't be anything different from our
city attorney who's mentioned
you know there is a real concern there
and
we'll await
ms pereira and legal to review that but
there might be a concern that some are
eligible based on the definition or
based on that uh
policy and so we're still in the process
of determining that mayor and council
uh was notified from our city attorney
earlier that mentioned to the mayor that
you know we can go back and apply to the
21 but um
even if we did that there will be some
that might be eligible
ineligible based on that contact but i
think that determination still needs to
be made
based on
any emails or even today trying to
figure out who's been contacted and how
they've been contacted i don't know if
there's anything in addition
thank you mayor and city council and
this is jennifer vega brown
as as far as the rfp process goes once
that was employed we should have
followed it um according to the code if
we were going to
vary from it or have any kind of changes
from it that should have been well
documented i don't know if it has i will
rely wholly on our internal audits
review of it once it's completed but
once you
indicate that you're going to use an rfp
process we should follow it
thank you attorney vega brown thank you
mr mayor thank you councillor vasquez
thank you mayor
yeah a couple of thoughts here i think
one is
you know clearly i think the
organizations that made contact with us
during our last council meeting did so
in the spirit um almost in a
whistleblower right to make sure that
the process was being followed correctly
before council took a vote and then it
was found by our internal auditor at
least from our preliminary
recommendations that some things weren't
followed so it seems to me like a
punishment
to applicants to disqualify them after
they rightfully
um
highlighted some things that potentially
are going to be found in this audit that
were that were wrong and so
that seems wrong to me um to disqualify
those folks because they essentially did
the right thing i think right um so
uh
so this is a tough one um
as i mentioned before during the last
round i i don't think that i would
change any of the projects that were
selected
as just on face value but based on what
was written and what i'm sure these
organizations are capable of
but i do have
an issue with
with with essentially ignoring some of
the recommendations from from our
internal auditor in terms of you know
how this process
potentially went you know went astray
from what we typically do
um so that makes it tough um
you know i i would say that
the eligibility committee piece of this
um with natalie's participation in that
seems to me like
i i don't
and i know natalie um you probably are
the best person to be
on this committee but based on our
internal audit and what we have our
internal auditor if that's something
that potentially puts the city at risk
and i don't know maybe even from
potential liability in the future
through this process and i think that's
something that we should go back and
review
with these same applicants with the same
applications and so that means
restarting the process under a
streamlined
new rfp that
corrects all the deficiencies or
potential deficiencies that our internal
audit identified it seems to me like
that might be a prudent way to go
and i feel completely comfortable that
there was nothing done in the spirit of
wrongdoing or you know especially from
the applicants when they came to
communicate with council and so i'd hate
to punish folks for that but i think
um
i think it's a opportunity for us to
make sure we get this right um before
rush into it but those are my thoughts
thank you very much
thank you councillor ben cuomo thanks
mayor um no i appreciate you
sort of naming that out and
um
i felt very comfortable with the next
steps that ms pereira had laid out in
terms of what could needed to happen in
order to move forward and i didn't even
get a sense of her that we needed to
start a process over but that there need
to be these pla these pieces put in
place
um and then i think
ultimately
while i i totally agree with you council
vasquez on the
um applicants and this direct contact i
ultimately think that also should be up
to the auditor and
to determine that but i felt really
comfortable with what she had laid out
and
and moving forward with that and that
may mean that to
you know these two colleagues here might
not be here for the final determinations
but at this point i think
um rushing a process for the sake of
rushing it is not the best option so
um i would like the process to unfold as
personally as ms pereira had laid out
and
and make those final determinations
at this point potentially without having
to start a whole new process over
but that is at least what i heard from
her and i feel like she's been working
really hard in the last couple of weeks
um to have given those recommendations
to us
thank you counselor beta stevie thank
you mayor um
much like uh my colleague ben coleman
with you i do feel like we should wait
um and hear the full uh recommendations
from our auditor
and that final determinations that she
has i think that's the best process and
then we'll also see it through our
oversight committee where i think we'll
be able to look at those next steps at
what's most um ethical legal and where
we should proceed from there
thank you
okay so what i'm hearing ifo is
is we're gonna wait for uh
viola to get to make her
provide that information i presume to
you and
city attorney and all those affected
parties
and i think it's important that we come
up with determination
the definition of who's eligible through
whether if if it was an email
or if it was more
to determine if that even if even just
one email
disqualifies them or not
and then come back and and i
would agree i don't want to see if it go
through a full new process but yet
address some of the concerns that were
brought up in in the audit
and then
let council
uh move forward and be able to to vote
on those and then just to clarify so you
now you're saying that theoretically
council doesn't vote on it as a package
they could vote on them individually
is that is that my understanding natalie
mr mayor the way i've written the
resolution
is uh that their fours are individual
projects
um so presumably and i'll defer to the
city clerk and the city attorney you
could amend those that that their force
as a as a council
yeah i think it's probably fair
that
you know it's kind of like
the united states congress you know when
they when they put through a bill there
can be parts of it that they don't like
and sometimes they have to vote no
because certain parts of it that they
don't like unlike the state they can
extract it with the line item veto
and and so i think it's fair that if a
council member likes 90 of the projects
but maybe that one that 10 i don't want
him to have to say no
i want him to be able to vote
individually in my opinion i don't know
how you feel
but i think that that would probably be
best
because
if there was a way to do that
that i think is important
is that doable
i think that's what natalie was
mentioning is that the way she presented
it allows you to
to amend
the emotion there
i don't know about it when i meant the
emotion the emotion but if it was a way
to make it so that it's not that
you know so that we're able to
to well i guess you have to amend it i
presume i don't know whatever makes it
easier
mr mayor i'm going to defer to again
city clerk and legal only because you
have a resolution that's been tabled to
your next meeting so
again okay i'm sorry that's right you
were going back to the original okay i
got you so you'll have to i got you no
no no you're right you're right
um did you have a comment counselor
photos no it's just going to say that
the resolution has already been drafted
and yeah you had to just i was just
testing make sure you guys were paying
attention yeah we're paying attention
no no worries there
i knew what i was trying you know
counselor vasquez thank you mayor um
yeah i just want to clarify i i'm
perfectly fine moving with the process
as long as it doesn't compromise the
the rfp process in a way that would
actually
you know come up in an external audit as
we know the city has a process every
year through which
external auditors make sure that we are
following processes and you know they
find deficiencies you know it
potentially hurts and harms the city so
if if we go through a process that
where we feel confident
and this will rely on our internal
auditor that we wouldn't get dinged as a
deficiency for not following with you
know our
procurement code then let's do it um but
if there is a potential for that to
happen then i think we we go back to the
drawing board because i don't think any
of us want to see that thank you mayor
very good
okay i think that pretty much concludes
this then
unless there's nothing anything further
that you may have or viola has
no
counsel
seeing none entertain a motion to
adjourn then
so moved by flores
a second a beta suv was made by calister
florida second by council beta stevie
that we adjourn christine
this is on the motion to adjourn the
work session counselor beta stevie yes
counselor vasquez yes
councillor ben cuomo yes
counselors orc
yes concert florida's yes concert canada
yes
mayor yes
okay we're adjourned it's 303 p.m again
thank you very much to staff for
everything they've done and for the
applicants for your
attendance as well all right thanks
this
few
sir
here
okay this is the agenda setting meeting
for our december 20th 2021 city council
meeting
number one non-consent one non-consent
number two non-consent two non-consent
three consent three consents
number four non-consent for non-consent
five non-consent five non-consent six
non-consent six non-consent seven
non-consent seven non-consent eight
non-consent eight non-consent nine
non-consent nine non-consent ten
non-consent ten non-consent eleven
non-consent eleven non-consent we're
going to be here till new year's
yes