Committee chair and staff outline scoring system, deadlines and consultant review for proposal shortlist

Jim Gilmore, city staff, briefed the committee on the scoring process and the online Bonfire system the committee will use to rate the nine proposals. He said each committee member must enter scores into Bonfire and that the system requires a short justification when members enter particularly low or high scores. "When you do do the scoring, the way the system works, they it asks you for a reason why you pick 0 or why you pick 5," Gilmore said, and he recommended typing a brief justification for outlying scores to aid later review.

Gilmore and Mayor Charlie walked the committee through the timeline: the committee will hear all nine presentations, committee members will be able to score through the Bonfire system with scores due by the Wednesday the presenters named (committee mentioned the "seventeenth" as the score deadline), and the consultant HVS will submit a separate scoring package. Gilmore said the Bonfire system will show averages to the committee and that city staff can assist members who have login issues; if the system fails for an individual, staff will accept paper scores and input them.

Committee discussion and recordkeeping: the chair and staff clarified that submitted scores are public records and available under open records rules, but they said the committee would focus discussion on aggregate averages during the meeting to identify a shortlist. Mayor Charlie described an anticipated process in which committee discussion would follow the scoring average and the committee would likely narrow the field to the top three or four proposals over multiple meetings.

What was not decided: the committee set no formal shortlisting at the meeting; members were reminded about meeting dates and that the next discussions likely would occur after the scoring window closed. Committee members asked for calendar and invite clarifications and staff said they would ensure updated invites and provide assistance for members who did not receive calendar changes.

Ending: Gilmore reminded members that consultants will also score separately and that the consultant results would be available for side‑by‑side comparison with the committee averages; the committee did not act on selection or shortlisting in this session.