Livingston URA approves up-to-$25,000 contract with consultant Brianne Downey

The Livingston City Urban Renewal Agency voted Feb. 25 to approve a contract with consultant Brianne Downey and to authorize staff to sign, authorizing task-order work under a $25,000 contract cap.

The agreement specifies that materials created under the contract will be the property of the URA, while the contractor receives a license to use the documents for marketing or portfolio purposes. City Manager Gager told the board the ownership clause appears on page 14 of the packet and is “relatively typical,” and that the contract’s last sentence grants the contractor a limited license to use finished materials.

Board members discussed how the contract would be used in practice. Gager described a structure of discrete task orders — a general support task order for routine board work and separate task orders for specific projects such as marketing the downtown enhancement program or coordinating with the downtown master plan. Gager also said billing and timing rules in the contract (sections 6 and 23) are standard boilerplate that affect termination and notice periods and that task orders would identify scope, duration and a cost estimate.

The contract has no fixed end date and is structured as an open-ended, task-order arrangement up to the $25,000 maximum. Gager said both parties can terminate assignment-specific task orders and that the contract includes a 15-day termination window for the overall agreement. The board asked whether task orders and other routine communications could be handled by email and Gager said formal contractual notices (termination, etc.) remain written notices, but routine email correspondence would be expected for task-order work.

Allison Mccenzi, Lisa Garcia, Julie Evans and Chris Raley voted in favor of the motion to approve the contract. No dissent was recorded.

The board directed staff to use task orders for billing and to bring scopes-of-work to the URA for approval as needed. Downey called in after the vote and said she looked forward to working with the URA and would stay on the call to listen until she had to leave for another event.

The URA’s decision follows a short period of questions from board members about hourly rates, invoicing cadence and whether the agreement would allow small, frequent meetings with the contractor. Gager said those details would be clarified in each task order. The board did not set a separate hourly cap in the contract; instead, each task order will define the scope, estimated time and costs.