Committee endorses staff move to issue ITN for master plan update; debates public interviews, scoring and negotiation procedures

The committee directed staff to prepare an Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) for the downtown master plan update and debated how best to structure the procurement, shortlisting and interview process to balance fairness, creativity and transparency.

Renee Hayes, the city’s procurement official, reviewed the solicitation options and recommended an ITN approach that allows proposers to outline approaches while enabling staff to negotiate terms with shortlisted teams. Committee members discussed the relative merits of RFQ/RFP versus ITN, whether interviews should be in public and whether iterative negotiations should be open to public view.

Several members argued interviews for shortlisted teams should be open to the public, with the evaluation/shortlisting step conducted in the public meeting; subsequent negotiations with shortlisted firms could be held in closed session to allow iterative negotiation without revealing competing teams’ strategies. Others warned that fully public iterative negotiations could discourage creativity because competing firms could watch recorded negotiations.

Committee members debated evaluation weighting. Multiple participants favored putting most of the score on experience and approach and reducing weight on firm capacity; several suggested calling out required roles (project manager, public engagement lead, economic development expertise) so evaluators and proposers know what the committee values. Members and staff suggested including a budget expectation in the ITN (the city’s budget is publicly known), but most opposed making price a high-weighted scoring category because price alone can favor low‑cost, low‑quality proposals.

The committee voted to authorize staff to prepare and post the ITN incorporating committee feedback. Members asked staff to compile the committee’s written comments and produce a concise set of three or four high‑level goals to lead the solicitation, and to provide the committee with proposed solicitation dates and the expected time commitment for any committee member who serves on the evaluation panel.

Quotes in this article come from the meeting record. Procurement official Renee Hayes summarized options: “we are going to have a presentation by staff ... and then I would like ... the members to state their highlights,” and multiple members urged transparency for shortlisting and interviews.