Committee awards Cure Violence Global technical‑assistance contract; broader vendor awards pulled for review

The Administration and Enterprise Oversight Committee approved a three-year technical‑assistance contract with Cure Violence Global to provide data systems, training and program design support for the city’s violence‑interruption initiative and data dashboarding.

Leah Lakes, deputy director of the Neighborhood Safety Department, described the RFP and selection process. She said the department sought a technical provider to build data-collection systems, develop training protocols for violence interrupters and advise on staffing, scheduling and evaluation. The RFP outreach included GovDelivery notices to more than 7,000 subscribers and e‑Supplier notifications to over 700 potential bidders; the incumbent vendor was notified and procurement and the city attorney reviewed the process.

Lakes told the committee Cure Violence Global was selected after a competitive RFP and that the firm provides a centralized, web‑based data system the company has developed over 15 years. She said the city would retain ownership of its data: “The city of Minneapolis owns the data. So if we ever cease having a contract with Cure Violence, we'd get our data back and we have 100% ownership of that.” The proposed technical‑assistance contract was presented as $161,000 over three years and includes site certification work.

During extended questioning, council members pressed staff on timelines, data access, compatibility with other local databases (for example the Downtown Improvement District), deployment decisions and cultural fit for specific neighborhoods. Lakes said the database is centrally hosted by Cure Violence Global, that all violence‑interrupter staff would be trained on the data app at contract start, and that some dashboard elements could be made publicly available while other fields would remain private as appropriate. She said staff aim to start new Minneapolis contracts April 1 and expected preliminary data to be visible by mid‑May with public‑facing dashboards available by summer.

Council members also asked about site certification and staffing standards. Lakes said local certification typically takes about three years and explained the three‑year contract length reflected the time to achieve certification. Council members raised concerns about cultural responsiveness, the relationship between interrupters and law enforcement, how data will address previously identified gaps (a New York University Policing Project report was cited by members), and how NSD staff will use local knowledge to complement Cure Violence guidance.

Separately, Jared Jeffries from the Office of Community Safety asked the committee to withdraw Item 23 — the RCA for the Minneapolis Strategic Outreach Initiative contracts — from today’s agenda so OCS could resubmit a narrower set of top-scoring proposals to the Committee of the Whole on March 25. Jeffries said the office was reviewing events that occurred since RFP scoring and would not request approval for one of the originally scored vendors (Salem Inc.) on March 25. The motion to refer Item 23 back to staff passed by a 4–2 vote (Vitale: no; Lisonbee: aye; Cashman: aye; Chuck Tay: aye; Palmezano: no; Wansley: aye).

The technical‑assistance contract with Cure Violence Global was approved by the committee and forwarded to full council. A roll‑call vote on the technical‑assistance item recorded six ayes and no nays. The committee also recorded that procurement denied a sole‑source waiver because the proposed amount exceeded the city’s $175,000 sole‑source threshold, which led NSD to run the RFP.

Why it matters: The contract funds centralized technical support, a common data platform and training intended to standardize data input and program fidelity across violence‑interruption vendors. Council members and community representatives pressed staff for public dashboards, compatibility with other local data systems and assurances that vendor selection and deployment decisions would reflect local cultural and community ties.

Discussion vs. decision: The committee approved the Cure Violence Global technical‑assistance contract (formal action, roll‑call vote) but referred the separate vendor contract RCA back to staff for further review and resubmission (formal action, roll‑call vote). Several council members requested follow‑up memos with additional operational details.