Everyone.

It's Monday, November 17th, 2025.

Um, procurement and contracting committee, policy committee for the board supervisors.

If the clerk could take the roll.

Supervisor Marquez present.

Supervisor Nate Miley.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Alright.

So this committee meets about four or five times annually.

And we I know I committed to having one meeting in the evening.

And we usually have that as our last meeting of the calendar year.

So this is our evening meeting.

We have a pretty pretty full agenda this evening.

And so we'll start off with our General Services Agency with their various items A, B, C, and D.

Good afternoon, Supervisors.

Kimberly Gassaway, Director of the General Services Agency.

So today at the request of the board, there's been a few presentations as it relates to the Labor Code 238.5 that was amended in 2023 via an assembly bill 520.

Next slide.

So we're going to go over the background of the labor code and the amendment and some share some definitions, the impacts of this amendment, what other jurisdictions have been doing, and proposed property services and long-term care services contracting policy.

Next slide.

So labor code 238.5 was amended and signed into law on October 10, 2023.

That was the amendment, and it was effective January 1st, 2024.

What AB 520 did was extended the labor code to public agencies, making them jointly and severely liable for wage theft by contractors providing property services or long-term care staffing.

This law mirrors existing requirements for private entities and includes an exemption where contracts with contractors covered by a collective bargaining agreement that expressly waives this liability.

So in essence, unless the collective bargaining agreement has that waiver, then the county will not receive that exemption.

Currently, there are no collective bargaining agreements that we could find that expressively waive this liability.

Next slide.

So a public entity is defined as a city county, city and county, district, public authority, public agency, or any other political subdivision or public corporation in the state.

Property services or janitorials, security guard, valet parking, landscaping, and gardening services.

Long-term care is defined as operation of a skilled nursing facility, intermediate care facility, congregate living health facility, hospice facility, and the list goes on as you can see there.

Next slide.

So the impacts, this legislation does not require the public entity to act.

The legislation imposes joint and several liability on public entities for unpaid wages if a supplier contracting with a public entity for a specific specified service has been determined liable for unpaid wages by the labor commissioner.

So GSA, after quite a bit of research and some consulting with county council, we came to propose the county board adopt a procurement policy to mitigate the risk.

Santa Clara County does, however, they have an office of countywide contracting management that launched a program in 2020 before this law.

It screens contracts for unsatisfied wage theft judgments and can disqualify bidders suspend or terminate contracts or withhold payment until the contractor remedies the violation.

In Alameda County here, here our landscaping contractors are required to submit certified payroll records in adation for submission to the Department of Industrial Relations.

This may have some risk mitigation for landscaping work, but it is a self-reported wages and doesn't cover all contract services in the law.

Next slide.

So then we took a look at all the contracts inventory.

I will before I jump into that.

We um also note that the labor commission picked these specific services because they're the highest risk for wage theft.

That doesn't mean uh any other contract could have wage theft, but the law specifically relating to long-term care facilities, behavioral health manages 40 of those contracts, and they run those procurements independent of GSA.

The GSA building maintenance division and the public works agency manage seven landscaping contracts, and there is a countywide master contract that includes two security guard service contracts.

I will point out that there before Chief moves, there are no janitorial service contracts because by code, all janitorial services in county-owned buildings are provided by county staff.

So what we're proposing is a long uh property service and long-term care contracting policy, and this ensures workers contracted count for county work are fully compensated, ensuring in Santa Clara.

This is sim uh similar to what they claim is the model for this and it aligns with what they have proposed.

So it ensures that white workers are uh for county work are fully compensated, preventing the county from inadvertently financially supporting employers with outstanding wage theft judgments and preventing the county from creating a race to the bottom among bidders for contracts.

So if they're bidding low, you know, these are low-cost bids, and um so often they'll put a low cost, and some of the way they can mitigate that is possibly by not paying their wages.

Next slide.

Oh, one go back one more.

So the policy which we're gonna go over next has a pre-award screening for wage theft judgments that we'll do with contractors when they submit bids.

The contractor will also be required to certify that they don't have any judgments, and they'll have an updated, we'll have to update our standard service agreement with this contract language, and then contract administration, what's the contract is awarded, those departments that um are manage them throughout the life of the contract will check regularly if there are unpaid wages and it requires the contract to report those, and then we'll have some enforcement.

Okay, we can take a look before I dive into the policy, which we can talk.

Do you have any questions before I go through the details of that?

Um one clarifying question.

So understand the screening, the contractor certification.

Um if it's uh a new entering into a new contract, does this legislation require any type of legal noticing?

Like, how would an employee know that they're actually their employer is contracted by the county to provide the service?

Like, are there any disclosure requirements?

Yeah, are they legally required to disclose that basically?

So I know the county we don't reach out directly to employees to tell them that, but I don't think the legislation calls that out.

Oh, yeah.

Uh this is Kathy Leam from the Office of County Council.

There is there are some components in the legislation that requires an employer who is going to provide services that are covered by this legislation to provide notice to the uh contracting party of any notices of judgment.

That failure to receive notice, however, does not invalidate the joint and several liability.

So it is required, but it is not something that would exonerate us from being jointly and severally liable.

But the employees may not know that it's a county contract.

Yeah, that's really what I'm getting at.

Like how would if you work for one of these vendors, um, how would you know that your employment is contingent on a contract with the county?

There's no legal requirement to inform them of that.

Or the employees, the person actually doing the work, the person um hired by the vendor that we're contracting with.

Well, the notice that's required in the law relates to outstanding actions from employees.

Um, so those employees would presumably be aware of the actions that they have brought.

Um, but I would need to look into other forms of notice that are required.

This is this particular legislation is part of a broader set of remedies and enforcement tools, and this piece of it that pertains to the county is only a small piece.

Got it, thank you.

Before the committee, but then at some point it'll need to be adopted by the full board if this committee would like us to bring it forward.

So again, it describes first the purpose from labor code 2385 as amended by AB 520 and extends the liability to the county for the risk of unpaid wages, and it reinforces our commitment to ensuring vendors are providing contract services to the county, are not engaging in weight that wage theft in addition to reducing the county's exposure to this liability for unpaid wages.

The policy applies to all solicitations, contracts, amendments, extensions, renewals, or purchase orders issued by the county for property services or services in the long-term care industry.

We have some definitions so property services in the law is contracted janitorial, of which we do not have any security guard services.

We do have ballet parking, we do not have valet parking, landscaping or gardening services.

Long-term care is defined in the code, is contracted operation of a skilled nursing facility, as I mentioned before, and it lists the different types of facilities, and an unsatisfied final judgment is a final judgment decision or order for unpaid wages or penalties issued by a court or the labor commissioner that remains unpaid for 30 days after entry.

I will mention to this board you should be aware that we learned that the labor commission are often behind on issuing these.

So sometimes there will be a lag time as they're doing their research.

So they've been on notice about that in the state.

Keep going.

So what will happen is staff um scroll down a little bit.

I think we went too far, the other way.

Sorry.

Up there.

Each bidder must certify under penalty of perjury that it has no unsatisfied final judgments, and they provide a written notice of any such judgments prior to award, and they provide notice to the county within 30 days of any new judgment for unpaid wages entered during their contract and during performance.

The contract must the contractor must also provide notes to the county of any notes of claim for unpaid wages if any amounts are for services performed under the contract.

So even if they don't have a judgment but a claim has been made, they are required to provide us with that notice.

We also do get those notices from we just recently received one from the state that there was a notice of a claim.

Contract language, all county contracts for covered services executed on or after the effective date, and which is still to be determined because we have to look at the procedures and putting this all in place and which procurement dates we're gonna what the start dates gonna be once the board approves this.

And it must include clauses addressing contractor certification and continuing notice obligations, contractor indemnification of the county for liability arising under labor code 238.5 is amended, and county rights to audit, withhold payment, or terminate for non-compliance.

Department Departmental Contract manager shall monitor compliance throughout the term of the contract performance and report any notices related to unpaid wages, including notices of a claim to the general services agency, procurement department, and county council within five business days.

Violation of this policy may result in suspicion, suspension, contract termination, or debarment proceedings.

Next, you'll see the list of questions that we're asking.

Apologize, some of it still has red lines when we're editing, but you'll see the contractor um certification that they're to submit with their bid.

So have you or any of your subcontractor proposed for this solicitation been found liable for final judgment or for unpaid wages or penalties within the last five years?

And they're to provide uh details or attach the documentation.

Number two, do any you or any of your subcontractors currently have an unsatisfied final judgment for unpaid wages or penalties issued by court or the labor commit California labor commissioner, yes or no?

They are to provide details of documentation, and if the labor commissioner's judgment database shows any open judgment, but they have satisfied that, they're to provide full documentation showing that's full satisfaction again because sometimes there's a delay, they may have satisfied the claim.

Have you or any of your subcontractors been debarred, suspended, or denied a license by the labor commissioner, DIR, Department of Industrial Relations, or any public agency for wage violations, yes or no, and certification under penalty of perjury that the information is true and correct?

So this is uh draft of the clause that we're um proposing that will be in the contract.

Contractor acknowledges the code as amended, extends joint and several liability for unpaid wages and interest to the public entity, it basically describes the law, and they certify under penalty of perjury that it has no unsatisfied final judgment and agrees to provide written notice.

So essentially what they're certifying before within 30 days during their contract period, they have to provide notice to the county within five days of the receipt of any notice of a claim.

So even if they don't have a judgment yet, and they are to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the county, its officers, agents, and employees from and against any claim citations order or judgment, and they're to maintain records sufficient to demonstrate compliance with all wage payment obligations and make such records available to the county upon request, and failure to comply with this section constitutes a material breach and may result in the county terminate for cause, offsetting losses from any payments remaining due to contractor or exercising other remedies available at law or inequity.

So we're proposing that that would be added to our contract language.

I don't have a hard copy of this, and it's not quite clear from either of you on the screen.

But um, if I heard correctly, even if there is a claim filed, they have to provide notice.

So even if a decision hasn't been rendered, they just have to flag we have this claim.

And go ahead, sorry.

Then we'd be able to monitor if the claim is validated, and then they've resolved it right away.

Okay, and they would have to based off that other questionnaire.

They would have to provide proof once a claim is settled.

That's correct.

Okay.

So I feel like that's comprehensive.

Um since this law just went into effect, what's the timeline for us to be in compliance?

So we're already in compliance.

We don't actually have to do anything by uh with the law.

It doesn't require us to act.

What we're proposing is by doing this, that helps us uh mitigate the risk of our liability, but it also makes uh puts contractors on notice that we're serious about them not engaging in wage theft.

Okay, by amending this language and this, and so I'm not clear where is this language gonna be housed?

Is it through the RFP, the procurement process?

So the certification will be in the RFP um documents to submit with their bid, as well as the language explaining what this is and the requirements, and then in the contract itself, which is this portion, so it they will when they sign the contract, they're again signing so whoever wins the bid that they understand this is a requirement of their contract.

Okay, and this is a policy uh vote once it comes to the full board, so it's just one action, one vote, it's not an ordinance that requires the two steps.

That's correct.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thanks for the uh report.

Um, I have a few questions.

Yeah, I don't have any problem with what's being proposed here, this is fine, but what I'm trying to understand is what is why are we just focusing on long-term care industry?

Why couldn't this policy be more broadly associated with everything?

So we did discuss that, and so and thought that you might ask that.

So, if you would like to recommend that, we could put this in all of our contracts.

Okay, right, and then if you put it in, you're saying with the long-term current care industry, and then if we put it in all of our contracts, if we want to be even more surgical and say when it comes to security contracts, we want security contracts to be RFP'd uh and have a requirement that they be union.

So, no, we're not recommending that at this time, and the reason that there's a couple of reasons.

So the um we could not find a collective bargaining agreement that waives the liability.

So, in essence, what the law says is that if the union in their agreement and the union members agreed to waive the county as also liable for those wage theft, then that would waive it for the county the risk for the county, but we have not been able to find a single collective bargaining unit where unions were willing to do that.

Okay, what I'm trying to get at is though um be when we do a procurement RFP procurement for security contract.

How many security contracts do we have?

Do you know if two?

Throughout the county.

Yeah, there it's master contracts, so they there's two companies and they do services and many.

So when we go out for a new procurement, could we put in there in the RFP that one of the requirements under the civil curement is that you'd have to be um you know, you have to be a union shop.

We could do that, that is a separate issue though, it doesn't it would not waive your uh liability for this.

Now I understand that San Mateo County, their board um did ask their CEO to take a look at a proposed policy to have that agreement, but the agreement has to specifically waive the county's liability, so essentially a union member I'd have to say okay, only my employer is gonna be liable, I'm not gonna make the county liable, and there typically are not those agreements.

Okay, employees typically are not gonna want to waive someone else paying their wage theft because what happens in many in this industry, especially security guards, janitorial landscaping, is when a contractor is a bad actor, what they do is they go out of business and then they open up shop somewhere else under a new name.

So it often does not solve the problem.

So for a union member, they're more likely to want to keep that liability with the county so that if they're if they're um the company they're working for goes bankrupt or closes shop, they still can get their wages from the county.

Okay, so um okay, because I think there's some other jurisdictions that have this in place already.

So, so um we might hear more about that.

There isn't.

Okay.

Yeah, we looked all over um state, even uh cities, counties, no one has the only Sam only um Santa Clara County has a policy similar to what we're proposing.

Okay.

Now, now if we extend this policy to all of our contracts, besides just long-term term care, long-term care industry.

So we're proposing security janit, not janitor, security, landscaping, gardening, and long-term care.

So the ones that are called out in the labor code, but we certainly appreciate if we did it across the board on all county contracts.

For security, landscaping, gardening, and what was the other one?

Um long-term care.

So it the law also calls out janitorial, but we do not contract for that.

Yeah.

Okay.

So right now it we're just doing long-term care.

So we could extend this to cover security, landscaping, and gardening.

We are proposing all of those.

All of those?

Yes.

Okay, but when I read this scope, it just said long term long-term care.

I think above there, it does say the other ones.

Is that correct?

Can you pull that last page up again?

Yeah, property.

So he's talking about in the contract the scope.

So property services.

Is that the one I should be looking at?

Yes.

It should say that.

So we'll double I'll double check that.

It's in there.

Because we are proposing it for all of those.

Okay.

So this the scope of this would include security, landscaping, gardening, and long-term care.

That's correct.

Okay.

And then you're saying we could be more specific when it comes to the security and say we want to have it be a union shop, but we cannot have that liability waived.

We would want the liability waived in their collective bargaining agreement, but it's there's some legal ramification for us telling them you have to have an agreement that waives our liability.

So we can't pressure someone to do that.

So it's somewhat of a double-edged sword.

Okay.

We can't say you have to have a union agreement, but in your agreement you have to waive our liability.

Could we say you have to have union agreement and not waive our liability?

We could.

Well, I'll just leave it at that.

We can take a look at that further.

Okay, because I I you know I really appreciate what we have here, and this is this is good, but I'm trying to make it even more um more extensive when it comes to security contracts.

Yeah, but um, I can let you know uh in my questions at the moment.

I don't know if Sylvia Smart is anything else before we call public speakers.

Kathy, did you have something to add?

I just wanted to echo what Director Gasway was saying, um, which is just that if that was going to be the direction, it would need to be reviewed not only for policy and practical implementation, but also for legal um look at the legal issues with that.

On the security piece?

Uh on any piece requiring the collective bargaining agreement, we would have some concerns.

Yeah, but right now I'm just concerned about security.

Okay.

All right.

I'd like to add if we're gonna conduct that research, which I am in support of, I think we need to be comprehensive, and I I don't think we could select just for one specific group if we're going to do that research.

I think it should be for all groups with respect to collective bargaining.

Um, but it'd be my preference to do that um legal analysis.

And also um it sounds like Sam Mateo may be moving in that direction.

So maybe we could learn from their approach.

Um, but I just want to be clear, even with this research, once that analysis is conducted, it still has to go through a process with collective bargaining, correct?

Like that's an answer we wouldn't know until that occurs.

Is that obviously correct?

Yes, then it it would be the concern about um requiring an outcome from that process that we would need to look at.

Could there be like strongly preferred?

I don't know if there's any kind of uh creative concerns about that direction, but that is something that we can research and report back on separately.

Okay.

Thank you.

A number of years ago when the measure C proposal first came forward and there was a uh a plan uh for the whole approach to that first measure.

What it was a county measure before it became a special initiative.

Um, one of the requests by some of the advocate groups were for us to uh require that um uh folks who provide a chair child care that they would require all of their employees to become uh union members and to join.

And when we did the research on that particular issue, uh we determined that the federal law requires counties and governments to be neutral on labor uh relations issues with private employers and such.

Um this sounds similar, but I think we would need to go forward and and validate that and uh let Deputy Lee confirm that that would be the same situation here.

Uh we just want to exercise caution in that area.

Okay, thank you.

I would like to make one additional recommendation because I think this is gonna take a much longer time, and we're also waiting to see what San Mateo comes up with because they're still reviewing this, um, how they draft their policy and also look at the legal ramification as well as impacts to our contracts.

But the inner in the interim, I think it's a good first step to at least have a policy that mitigates wage theft um in general.

So I would recommend two steps like let us move forward with this.

It's gonna take us some time to put this into place while we research whether or not the next phase would be union um collective bargaining agreements and bring that back to your committee.

I don't I don't think I have a problem with that.

I just want to make sure though, if with that two, because I think it's important to have this in place.

Um, but we can't we couldn't apply if we go forward with the the next step.

We we could that would have to be um prospectively.

We couldn't say with existing contracts, we're now making this requirement.

Would have to be with when it comes up either for an extension or a renewal or something, or new RFP, that's when it would apply.

It would have to be a new RFP is my assumption.

That's correct.

Okay, but at least we'd have this in place for now.

That's correct.

Okay, all right.

Okay, let's call the speakers if we have any.

There are no speakers for this item.

No speakers on item one.

Sorry about that.

Alex Garcia.

Uh good evening, um, or good afternoon, members of the board.

My name is Alex Garcia, and I'm a political organizer with SEIU USW.

Our union represents 18,000 security officers across California, and we take seriously our responsibility to ensure that these workers are treated fairly and protected from employers who may try to exploit them.

First, uh, we want to thank you for the work you've already done to strengthen responsible contracting standards at the county level uh to ensure those standards are fully upheld.

We respectfully urge the county to adopt a collective bargaining agreement CBA requirement.

This would mean that any company bidding for county contracts must demonstrate that its workforce is covered by a CBA.

Under state law.

The county's only protection against liability for wage theft is to contract with security companies whose workers are represent represented under a CBA.

And across the state, more cities and counties are moving in this direction.

Sacramento, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and San Mateo County have all incorporated some form of CBA requirement into their procurement processes.

Right now, Alameda County's procurement process uh policy prioritizes the lowest cost proposal.

While this may appear fiscally responsible on paper, in practice, it fuels a race to the bottom for an already low wage workforce.

It effectively shuts out responsible security contractors, those who provide affordable health care, paid time off, and base basic dignity on the job.

So for these reasons, uh we urge you to join the growing number of public agencies leading on this issue and adopt a CBA requirement.

Uh thank you for your time and consideration.

Can I ask one clarifying question?

Um the municipalities already in discussion or having some form of a CBA that you mentioned.

Is it city or county of Sacramento?

Uh the cities of Sacramento, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and the County of Sacramento.

Thank you.

Zaid.

Good afternoon, uh, good evening.

Uh my name is Zay Elamin.

Um I've been working doing security for the city of Oakland for approximately 19 years.

We are we have a CBA, we're union, and it assures that we we get what our rights because these companies, many of these companies, they'll tell you anything, they'll go, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And once they sign, you sign the contract, there are many little games that are played, like me myself.

Uh they were gonna shut me out from having a lunch period or breaks, saying they didn't have anyone to relieve me, but the union uh the union made sure that they got someone to relieve me and pay me for the breaks that I missed.

See, this is the uh the union is our security, and also the union is your watch dog.

Think about that.

That's your watch dog to make sure to think outside here listening to the things that you were saying to make sure that the things that you were talking about are implemented, the union will make sure of that.

So, this is this is this is what I'm saying.

Uh uh, this is why we propose that you put some teeth to it, have it in there that any company that comes in to the county uh is union, the same way the city of Oakland does.

The city of Oakland does this all the time, renewing every contract, and there's never been an issue.

Uh also the union makes sure that we get health care.

So uh so you so did your guards and not own the county for health care, and these companies that do that.

So I just want to bring this to your attention.

Thank you very much for listening to it.

No more speakers.

Okay, thank you.

Speakers.

So once again, I know Supervisor Marquez said everything right now.

I'm just myopically focused on security.

Um, union, you know, guarantees, uh, collective bargaining agreement.

So once again, why are we hesitant to move in that direction?

So it's a supervisor.

Um to be clear, we uh it's not that we are hesitant when this first came to my attention and was handed to me to look at it further with uh county council and bring it forward.

It was to address the liability in uh related to the law.

I think when it was presented to your board before, that's what they were focused on, and we're saying you're not required to act.

But when we looked at it, it seemed appropriate for us to make our contracts better it was only um recently I apologize I reached out to your office to say what is really the biggest concern because if you have a collective bargaining unit and where some of these cities may have that for security unless that agreement specifically waives their right to hold the county liable it doesn't protect us from the law.

But now that I understand better we will certainly do that research I don't have any hesitancy with doing the research and finding out what we can do around um presenting to your board if you're interested in us looking at union uh contracting yeah now um and that's something San Mateo's presently looking at so San Mateo the board directed the county executive officer to bring a union uh contract forward and they they were talking about this law so we were waiting to see what they do and uh what that policy looks like so it's probably I think we I forgot we that was a recent board action so we're still waiting to see what what they could do.

But we can certainly do our homework regardless of what they're doing.

Okay and then San Mateo once again it's around security.

No I think it's beyond security.

Oh you think it's group credit.

But let me double check I have to look at my notes my notes are over there on my laptop.

Okay well um let me see if Supervisor Marquez has any questions.

Ah different Deputy Lee looks like you want to chime in supervisor Miley I just wanted to note that I I briefly looked at the San Mateo policy and it pertains to janitorial services.

Oh I apologize.

I'll also note that I believe at least one of the security contracts includes some federal funding and one of the exclusions in the San Mateo policy is for all contracts that have um funding from any other source whether from federal state or donation device so it the appropriate formulation of the policy including exceptions and any legal concerns would need to go through the typical process once we have something more concrete to discuss.

So if you're just looking at security that kind of narrows your your level of research would that would your research be compounded if we're looking at landscaping, gardening and longtime care.

I I believe many of the concerns would be universal in terms of the requirement to have a collective bargaining agreement.

So it it would not necessarily assist or expedite the research to focus more narrowly on security but as one of the security contracts does include federal funding I just wanted to manage expectations that San Mateo's policy does not include that.

So if the committee I think the committee's going to do this request that this come back to us with that level of research and analysis when do you think you can bring bring that back I know we'll meet possibly the either the end of January or the first part of February if not then we probably won't meet again until April or yeah April or May So I think that um I don't like to overpromise so we'll start doing our research it took quite a bit even though this looks short to do the research that we did was um extensive so let's say the spring meeting okay okay.

So April, May.

I'll certainly let you know if we have challenges with that.

Okay, all right so because um I know our offices are working with the clerk's office on the schedule for these meetings next in 2026, but I I um I know there'll be either one late January or early February, but then I don't know the dates after that.

Um, and then it's just one meeting, either late January, early February.

Now um let's see here.

So this comes back to us, we'll be able to look at that.

Okay, and then I think if Supervisor Marquez is it's okay with it, then we could we could advance the existing policy to the full board, but also have you come back to the committee with a more um expansive policy relative to collecting collective bargaining agreements.

That's correct.

And I think when I said uh do it in phases, what we'd propose is to do these contracts first, sort of pilot it and then move it to if you wanted to expand that to our other contracts, these policies, unless you want us to go all in.

But when you say go all in, are you talking about once again security landscaping, gardening, and long-term care?

That's that's all in, right?

Oh no, no, no.

We want to move that forward, but if you want us to look at other contracts that the county has and put this policy in effect for those as well, there's different um beyond supervisor Marquez had mentioned that beyond these services, yeah.

But I would like to start with these.

But we can certainly look at um other contracts.

Most of our contracts are qualifications based.

These are low bid, so I want to make make sure I'm clear on this.

So the policy today would be if we support this, would be look would be um dealing with property services and long-term care services, which would include landscaping, security, uh, gardening, long-term care.

Um, then you're all then you'll come back to the committee with an analysis around collective bargaining agreements for the for these four.

And then you're asking, do we want to expand beyond what's before us today with the policy to all county contracts?

Is that what you're asking?

Correct, but I want to be clear.

You asked us to do the research on the security for the collective bargaining first, right?

Or do you want us to look at it?

I think county council said the magnitude of work would be into universal, okay.

Wouldn't matter.

Yeah, yes, that's what I'm proposing.

That we start with those four, then we'd look at the collective bargaining um agreement issue, and then uh we should have enough information by that time.

Well, I'm just trying to think of the timeline to roll this out, how long it'll take us to see how this goes in our propos in our uh bid process to see whether it makes sense to move it forward to other contracts.

Yeah, because I I would um my gut instinct say let's just deal with these four at this point in time around this policy before we extend it to all contracts.

That's that's kind of my gut.

And that's what the la this um amendment AB 520 was really targeting these contracts because they tend to be the highest risk for this issue.

So Supervisor Marquez, or what do you think?

Uh, I support the proposed timeline, so I'm just gonna say it again to make sure I'm understanding correctly.

Um so I'm okay with moving forward with what's presented to us today in terms of the policy with the categories that were captured on the record, which is um security, landscaping, gardening, and long-term care facilities.

You provided a list of 40 that are under contract with behavior health services.

Um so let me just pause there.

How soon will that policy action come to the full board for adoption?

Do we think before the end of the year?

Don't need an exact date, but are we sure?

The end of the year, or something before the end of this calendar year.

I think we've done most of our homework that I mean, there's not that many board meetings, so I'm just mindful of that.

So maybe January.

Okay.

Um, and then uh simultaneously.

So the board, let me let me say a couple additional, give you some additional information.

So when we looked at this, um, because we're looking at our uniform procurement manual as a whole, there's some things that are procedures, not quite policies, we call them policies.

We want this to be a standalone policy.

It'll come to you with a full resolution.

So we're gonna draft that board letter, get it ready, but then once it rolls out into the contracts, there's also a timeline for us to actually implement that we have to look at and where those contracts are in the process of our piece.

Okay, and that information that timeline would be included in the board letter.

We'll have a better sense.

Yeah, we'll have a better sense.

Okay, so it could target the end of the year, but it may be January.

Okay, so that that's reasonable, and then uh second step to that parallel process.

Is you're willing to conduct more research with respect to collective bargaining requirements for the same categories we already discussed that's gonna take you time to do, and we should have an update possibly in the spring.

Yes.

Is that correct?

Is that okay?

Just want to make sure we're all on the same page.

Thank you.

I support that.

So that's is this an informational item?

Can I we take read the direct that design this uh policy go to the full board?

Doesn't say on the agenda, so I'm gonna call it an action item.

So the motion is that the policy go to the full board.

Um, and then that the staff do additional research on the collective bargaining um uh associated with these these categories of uh contracting and bring that back to this committee in the spring.

That's the motion by I'll second.

Uh Miley seconded by Marquez.

Clerk want to take the roll.

Supervisor Marquez.

Hi, Supervisor Miley.

Hi.

Got it.

Okay, thank you for that.

Thank you.

Helping us understand all that.

Okay, so let's go to item one B.

Again, Kimberly Gassaway, Director of General Services Agency.

So this is our procurement and contracting policy report for the activities during the quarter of July 1st, 2025 to September 30th, 2025.

So the first category is GSA procurement administered uh 33 formal procurements for goods and services, totaling just over 18 million dollars.

15 of those were seleb certified slubs, eight were non-local certified slevs for the total of um 10.

I'm sorry, it says 33, but it's uh for this portion, the value is for certified slev is 11.5 million, almost 2.8 million for non-certified local and non-local was about 4 million.

So you can see the slugs are 64% of the value, the non-certified but still local contracts are 15%, and the non-local is 21%.

GSA office of acquisition policy approves small local and emerging business policy waivers for 319 new contracts and 45 amendments, or a total of 364, totaling 116.5 almost six million.

And of the new waivers issues, 67.6 million was for medical services under a pooled contract consisting of five vendors.

We call that out because the amount was so significant of the remaining 49 million, 14.2 million approximately 29% were issued to local Alameda County owned businesses.

So these are the SLEB waivers, 319 new.

You can see those numbers at the bottom at 107 million, 9.5 million for a total of the 116 million.

Keep scrolling down.

The quarter GSA, um, during that quarter, GSA purchasing approved 98 sole source exempt exceptions for 10.4 million and 70 sole source exemptions for 10.5 million for a total of 20.9 million.

Purchasing also approved 33 piggybacks for 14 million.

Of the 98 exceptions, 11 were approved for local vendors representing 24% of the total value that was approved.

Here we go.

Scroll down.

There you go.

Of the 70 exemptions, um, 13 were local vendors, uh, I got lost a little bit here.

So make sure I'm not saying the same thing again.

Of the 98 exceptions, 11 were approved for local vendors representing 24%.

I said that of the 70 exemptions, 13 were approved for local vendors representing 52% of the total value.

And of the 33 piggybacks, seven were approved for local vendors representing 3% of the value.

So you can see in the chart the different types of exceptions, exemptions, and the sole source and piggybacks.

Scroll down.

And then we again, as your board has requested, put a list of what those different categories are.

So sole source exceptions are single source of supply, patented rights, absolute compatibility, etc.

Exemptions are typically computer software, educational services, off the shelf software project packages, utilities services, etc.

Piggybacks, even though those were the least number uh percentage of local because those are typically those are contracts where a different jurisdiction, say another county ran a procurement, and we piggyback off their procurement.

I just ask one quick clarifying question before I move on.

Um thank you, Director Gasway.

On page one under SLEB waivers, can you um explain amendments to me?

I'm not clear on that.

So this is where a contract was already awarded and may have already had a seleb waiver, and so now they're just coming to amend either to extend the contract or increase the value.

Existing it's an existing.

Thank you.

So then we move into construction contracts.

So GSA continues to utilize its qualified contractors list, and the deputy director Doug Bond is here to talk more about this.

And this quarter, we awarded 15 informal construction contracts for just close to 1.3 million, with 83% of the dollars going to local firms.

I know Supervisor Miley's asked about that quite a bit.

So it does seem that we're getting a lot of local contractors this work.

And then for um formal construction, we awarded one progressive design build um contract, one design build contract, one energy services construction contract.

That's our new procurement, our new delivery method with a combined value of almost 160 million dollars.

So the one design build contract went to a local contractor for 30.8 million.

The one progressive design build, that's out at uh Santa Rita jail is 129 million to a non-local contractor for the total of 160 million dollars.

Let's go back one second because I do want to point out one other thing.

On the progressive design build and design build contracts and the energy services contracts, even the ones that are non-local, they are required as part of the design phase to use a SLEB up to 20% if the architect firm is not a SLEB.

Job order contracts, the building maintenance issued 13 job order job order contract task orders that came to your board under existing contracts.

So the contracts are put in place in advance, and then task orders for work is brought individually to your board for award, and the combined total is 2.6 million dollars.

55% went to local jock contractors, and 45% of 1.1 million went to non-local.

Then we have we usually keep give you a list of all of the job order contract task orders.

So you could see a lot of work on the Fairmont campus at Willow Rock, Fairmont, the Santa Rita Chaplain Gym.

Mark Scott is non-local, also did some work at Willow Rock, Mark Scott did some work at West Winton and some Santa Rita Housing Unit renovation work.

Did some work up on Fairmont?

So we are really Fairmont, which at um I'll be bringing some information to your board work session in the near future, and some of it will come to the HS meeting tomorrow, but a significant amount of work is going on that campus.

Can I ask the West Winton?

Is that probations building?

Do you know what building or RCDA?

West Winton, do you know what?

I believe for the CDA.

CDA got it.

Thank you.

Any questions before I go?

This is the next item.

No, this is still the second.

Apologize.

Scroll down so I can see that's hard for me to see up there.

So this is the report that we do on the project stabilization and community benefits agreement.

That's our agreement with the building trades that I presented to you at the last meeting.

And so we provide you with during this period how much the project bids and awarded after the agreement applies to projects awarded on or after October 6, 2020.

This labor report includes payroll data available in a Lation system.

That's our data system.

The county uses to track wages, and it's through October 1st, 2025 and offset credit applied when appropriate.

Results are summarized below.

So countywide cumulative total, the number we report the number of hours is 471,131.

49% of those hours are local with the goal of 40%.

17% are apprentice hours, which is uh toward the 20% state requirement, and 40% disadvantaged resident apprentice goal, disadvantaged worker goal is we are on target countywide.

The next row shows GSA's portion of that.

So you can see we're 48% of the 40% goal.

We are meeting the 20% state requirement on the GSA projects, and we're exceeding the disadvantaged resident worker requirement on GSA projects.

Next, it lists each of the individual projects and which are meeting or exceeding.

And as I mentioned before, we do have a joint advisory committee that meets whenever a contractor is below the goals or the state requirement.

So can I ask for clarity on the cumulative countywide apprentice hours?

We're at 17%.

Trying to recall the last meeting there was information flag for public work.

So do we know if that's the entity?

Yeah.

If she scrolls down, you can see public works.

A little bit further.

So again, it shows you the cumulative that repeats itself on the page where public works subtotal.

So right now they're at 50% of the local area residents, but they're at 14% on the state requirement for apprenticeship hours.

And again, the contractor that's not a county goal, that's a state requirement.

So they'll need to work on getting those numbers up.

Then they have the for disadvantaged resident worker, which right now they're at 18.

I mean 37%.

And again, they also come to the meetings with the joint advisory committee.

If you're ready, I'll just um go over this a little bit.

Our bid conferences, GSA held 13 big conferences.

Our purchasing department with 97 attendees for procurement of goods and services.

We hosted 13 vendor outreach events with a total of 49 attendees.

The building maintenance department held 10 excuse me, bid conferences and six site walks with a total of 93 attendees.

Capital programs at GSA held four bid conferences for construction projects with 97 attendees, and our real property management division held three big conferences with 13 attendees.

You can look at that calendar if you'd like to post it on your board's website at any time, and it tells you upcoming uh contracting events.

In a little bit, you're going to hear from Mary Weather and Williams.

We invite them to come today because they manage our contractor technical assistance program and they participate in 22 events.

And they also perform many um trainings for local contractors.

And then we um maintain memberships at the following organizations, which I reported the list is the same as last time, but you see chambers of commerce, business associations, American Contract Compliance Association, and the California Association of Public Procurement Officials.

So we're heavily engaged across the community the county in uh getting the word out about our different projects and opportunities.

Do we have any questions?

You have any other questions or comments?

No, okay.

I have a couple of questions.

First of all, thanks for the report.

Um seems like uh under the project stabilization community benefit agreement.

I guess public works is kind of bringing GSA down, GSA's above the you know, either above the goal or at the goal.

So you need to talk to your counterpart Daniel with doesn't bend.

Um let's see, then otherwise everything up to that point.

I don't think I have any questions at the moment, but I do appreciate the data.

You can see a significant improvement in local contract.

Yeah, I see that.

So maybe that's why I don't have any questions at the moment.

Um, but I do when it gets back to GSA's membership, uh it just so happened that I was at a um an event on Saturday, and someone who I think used to work for the Port of Oakland or ACTC, I can't remember which one, said that um she thought the East Bay Interagency Alliance wasn't um living up to what was envisioned.

Because I you know, I helped put that together with Supervisor Carson and Chuck Foster, who was the uh general manager at the port back at the time, and I think Linda is Linda Moore.

She retired, she used to um work with East Bay Energy Interagency Alliance at a future procurement contracting committee meeting.

Could we kind of get a an update on the alliance?

What she said to me is the whole thing about reciprocity and and things that we I said I thought we had resolved all that, everything was good.

You know, that was my understanding.

They haven't had many meetings in a while because I did ask staff about that, but I can certainly do more information.

Okay, so I just want to see if it's um still fulfilling its original purpose and goal, and then there was something else I wanted to oh, does GSA ever do anything with Cypress Mandela?

So we uh um we joined membership, that's the pre-apprentip program.

Yes, and they do.

I know Mary Weather Williams also engages with them as well.

So aside from S Mandela, that's pre-apprenticeship.

Is that a membership too or not?

It is.

I don't see it on the list, so I'll need to ask about it.

But we did join um and became members.

Um, I don't know if it's a sponsorship or a membership, but I know we did do that.

So you'll take a look at that.

Okay, all right okay those are all my questions let's see if we have any public speakers.

No public speakers no public speakers okay so now we're down to item one C.

So I'm gonna introduce Deputy Director Doug Bond from our General Services Agency building department.

Good evening supervisors.

My name is Doug Bond I'm the deputy director of the building maintenance department within GSA.

And I'm here to talk about our informal construction procurement performance.

Next slide the purpose of the report is to review the informal construction limits for GSA Building Maintenance Department discuss GSA's outreach efforts discuss impacts for the qualified contractors list on BMD informal construction.

Back in uh April 2nd 2024 your board adopted an ordinance to align the uh county administrative code with the public contract code um and the contracts for public projects up to 75,000 are now approved by the purchasing agent.

Contracts over 7500 are being brought to your board for approval.

The current informal bidding limit in the public contract code uh is at 2200 one of the uh um things I want to really highlight here is our a qualified contractors list uh we established that back in uh 2022 uh and you know this is uh utilizing the Uniform Public Contract uh construction cost accounting act uh and you did using that um provision within the public contract code allowing allowed for us to establish a contractor uh qualified contractors list the list must be renewed on a calendar year basis or every year uh so we have uh a current uh qualified contractors list uh contractors can register or be added to the qualified contractors list based on the contractor's license at any time throughout that year we're currently using the 2025 qualified contractors list and I will say that we start the outreach for the 2026 as of December 1st uh so we'll start that here fairly shortly uh notices uh inviting formal bid uh procured under this code uh allow up to 2200 are emailed out to the qualified contractors list based on their contractor license and uh to all construction trade journals um here's an update on the outreach that we do uh ultimately we do have our qualified contractors list on the GSA website and you know you can go to contracting opportunities here's the link you know if any contractors are interested in signing up and we can add them throughout that year and again renew them each uh year on a yearly basis um we provide outreach uh through a number of different mechanisms to solicit to this bid uh we go out through uh you know our partners such as Maryweather and Williams the National Association of Minority Contractors EGUBulletins uh are are sent out as well through our procurement side um as well as newsletters and of course to the construction trade journals we do also utilize other agencies that have contractor lists established.

We'll go to their website, find uh contractors that are on their websites, and also out do outreach to them trying to get as broad of a um outreach as possible.

We do um distribute information through the local chambers of commerce as well.

Additionally, we participate with uh public works and they're they're building uh opportunities for business, their Bob breakfast, and we do outreach at that event as well.

Here are some numbers for 2025 on our current contractor qualified contractors list.

We have a total of 342 contractors as of the end of October that were on that list.

And you can see the breakdown of the local contractors that are within the county and the ones that are outside the county currently signed up on that list.

And really it's meant to show the impact that this qualified contractors list has had to really build up our numbers overall and look at the breakdown here between the local and non-local contractor participation.

You can see that from 2022, we had a total of 129 contracts that were issued.

As you move into 2023, 368 total contracts that were issued and 75.5% were to local contractors.

And in 2025, just the 10 months at worth of data, we have 223 total contracts and 69% going to local.

Next slide.

So you can see that breakdown.

So looking at 2022, you can see the uh the total amount of the contracts uh issued is uh 1.1 million uh and 72% going to uh local contracts under the $75,000 limit, and then we broke it into the 75 to 220.

Um that higher level requires the outreach to the qualified contractors list as well as to the construction trade journals, and those as we implemented that uh qualified contractors list, we were able to start reaching that higher group of contract amounts in there.

So you can see as we went into 2023, we were able to issue quite a larger number of contract value at 4.3 million that was issued there.

You have the number of 70 that went for under 75,000 to local contractors.

We had the uh total of 40 uh percent that were to 75 to 220 for the 2023 year, and I actually uh I didn't have it on the slide up there, but I I did the math on that.

So overall um we had 59.9 percent uh that went to our local contractors uh in that year in calendar year 2024, um we had uh a total of 5.1 million dollars that was awarded in contracts with 58 percent um 58.7% that were under 75,000 and 47.6 percent that were uh between 75 and 220.

Uh and then you know, in 2025, currently where we have.

Oh, actually, I'm sorry, let me give you the numbers for the combined total.

Uh, the combined total for calendar year 2024 was 56.2% that went to local contractors, uh, and currently in our uh in the uh uh the 10 months of 2025, um we have uh 2.8 million dollars that's been awarded in contracts at 58 percent um to uh local contractors between under the $75,000 dollar limit, and currently we're at a hundred percent of local contracts awarded uh for 75 to 220.

Um our current percentage overall is 65.2 percent to the local contractors.

And that is the end of my presentation, so open it up for questions.

Okay, thank you.

So is Mark has any questions or comments?

Yes, thank you for the presentation.

Excuse me.

Um help me understand the threshold of the 220,000.

How did we land there?

Uh that is actually based on the public contract code requirements.

So we're we aligned our admin code to actually um point to and uh mirror the um the codes that are um assigned at the state level.

The state level, okay.

And then on slide, I think guess it's for the qualified contractors lists.

Yes, it mentions the uniform public construction cost accounting act enacted in 1983.

Yes.

Okay.

So the code enacted in 1983, but were we updated ours?

I just want to be clear on the timelines in 2022.

That's when we actually established a qualified contractors list to allow for that direct solicitation out to the contractors that were on that list.

Prior to that point, we went to a statewide list of contractors, so it was a wider stretch.

Okay.

And um you mentioned the breakfast with public works.

Do you happen to know how frequently that takes place?

Is that once a year, twice a year?

It is once a year for their Bob breakfast um that they hold.

Um I know they had other outreaches that um have taken place.

I know we participated um last month in another outreach with them as well.

Okay.

And then just looking at the total value, the spread throughout the years, um, looks like in cycle 2024, it was almost um 5.2 million.

Um obviously there's gonna be a variance that's just dependent on our needs here in the county, correct?

That is correct.

Okay, do you can you kind of flag maybe why 2024 was a bit higher or the highest so far?

We um issued a lot of contracts in that year and uh started a lot of work.

I know we have other contracts.

This is looking specifically at the informal construction.

So we do have uh job order contracting and the formal ones that my director had previously presented on.

So, you know, these are just kind of a snapshot of the smaller ones, okay.

Um, so we did have a number of larger ones that went forward this year um through jock and uh other platforms.

Okay.

Um would it be possible in the future um just to kind of give us a snapshot on what's being covered in these contracts, just kind of like if there's um, I don't know, like I'm not gonna presume I know what type of um specific examples, but what are like kind of the top three categories?

Um if you could just give us specific um examples of what we're contracting for.

Yes, absolutely.

That would be helpful just to have better context.

But other than that, this was a great report, thank you.

So, Thea, thanks for the report.

I think this is one that I've been waiting to see.

So if I'm reading this correctly, it was April 2024, that we amended the ordinance to go for informal bidding limits up to 220,000.

Yes, that's when we uh aligned the uh at administrative code to match up the numbers with for the informal construction limits with the uh public contract code uh levels.

Prior to that point, we actually had specific numbers that were in the admin in the ordinance that showed the dollar thresholds for the informal construction, which had matched up before, but it wasn't an automatic renewal.

Supervisor, just for a technical legal standpoint, um as the state commission would change those dollar amounts in the past, we would amend the ordinance and insert the that level in the last go-round uh the decision when it was made to incorporate by reference the changes made by the state commission.

So even though we're currently at 220, if the commission makes that change, then your ordinance will automatically reflect and recognize that additional dollar amount.

Yeah, thanks for um I'm mentioning that because I had forgotten about that piece, that's great.

So, and I think we did this because we want to try to help local contractors be able to get some of these informal bids.

And if I'm reading this correctly, calendar year 2025, 10 months.

So if I don't look at calendar year 2024, but I look at calendar year 2025, 100% of the total informal bids have gone to local.

Yes, currently for the 10 months that we're currently in in 2025, the data through the end of October, um the total uh contract award of the 463 215, which was um, you know, was issued out to local contractors, correct?

And then and then the um contracts 75k and under uh 58 percent went to local for calendar year 2025.

Um I'm sorry, I I didn't understand for calendar year 2025, right here on total informal under 75,000 calendar year 2025.

Oh, yes, the amount was the percentage is 58.4 percent.

Correct.

Yeah, yes.

So I just want to make sure, so based on this, more of our informal bids are going to local contracts in 2025, thus far.

Yes, correct.

And I actually I gave um the total combined for all of the informal under 220,000 at 65.2.

That wasn't listed on your your chart here, but if you look at the total under 220, that's uh currently at 65.2 going to local contractors.

So the total under 220 for fiscally calendar year 22, 23, 24, and 25 is 65% to local.

That was just the combined total for calendar year 2025.

Oh, okay.

But looking at the numbers, um, you know, because we have numbers between 75 and 220 for calendar year 2023, that number was 59.9% to local contractors for calendar year 2024, that combined number was 56.2 percent.

So, you know, it's remaining over the 50% number with uh this year being at 65.2.

Yeah, that's that's and that's I mean, in my mind, I think that's good that it's increasing because the thing is um we want to keep as much of the dollars local as possible as well as make it easier for local contractors uh to you know bid on these now um the question is do we know if any of these the percentage of these locals who were selebs, do we know that?

We don't have that information because I know celeb applies to the goods and services side a little bit more.

Um, you know, some of these contractors may have been registered also to do work as a seleb uh under the goods and services, but we don't have that calculation.

Okay, okay.

All right, well, I think it's things improvements.

Yeah, that's good because like I said, we want to keep more of the dollars local and formal.

That's great.

Um, so I don't think I have any other questions at the moment.

Yeah, so do we have any public speakers on this item?

No speakers.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

GSA is just dominating the agenda this evening.

Uh the overachievers.

So item one D.

So Merriweather and Williams, they're probably on the line if they can be uh upgraded to presenter.

Somebody has their hand up there, I'm not sure.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak.

I really appreciate it.

Um, okay.

Can you hear me now?

We can hear you.

Okay.

Good afternoon.

I'm Jennifer Elmore with Merriweather and Williams.

I really appreciate this opportunity to speak to you about the Alabeda County Contractor Technical Assistance Program.

Um with uh GSA.

Next slide, please.

Um, so the contractor technical assistance program or CTAPS mission and goals.

The program's purpose is to support GSAs and um PWAs, uh strengthen small local and emerging contractors' participation in county projects.

Um in an effort to expand access to business development, bonding and financial resources, we build capacity through one-on-one coaching, technical assistance and education, and the ultimate goal is to ensure county and investments benefit local communities and promote equitable growth.

Um, when we meet a contractor, what we do is we work with them, we assign an account manager to them and provide them an assessment and a work plan and then work with them to improve their business.

Um, some of the program impact and strategies are to remove barriers that have historically prevented small and diverse contractors from bidding on public works project.

Um, reduce bonding capacity constraints, um, and that should enable greater participation for local and small um disadvantaged firms, um, using aligned risk management approach to increase contractor readiness and financial access while procting um uh sponsored community development financial institution resources, and that is that we have partnered with Pacific Community Ventures to create a loan program, a working capital-specific loan program to assist contractors if they are able to um when they get a uh county Valamita project that they have enough funding to support that project.

And um, we're supporting county efforts to modernize contracting practice uh practices, right size qualification requirements and incorporate inclusivity in the valuation criteria.

Next slide, please.

So our track record is we have been doing this uh for 28 years since 1997 um throughout California, delivering contractor capacity and agency savings.

And how we do the agency savings is that if you have more contractors bidding on a project and we're able to assist the lowest bidder, then the it it allows a meaningful savings to the county when the lowest bidder uh has more competition.

We have supported 4,000 plus contractors through through our programs, and we saved 27.4 million in public dollars through increased bid competition, and then one point uh 1.12 have received uh bonding support to bid on projects, and in comparison to the standard surety industry, we have a um 0.001 default rate.

Um we have a 0% loan default rate on funding, and we have funded $6.2 million in loans, and we have become over the 20 28 years of practice a case study model studied by economic development research groups, as well as this program here is a gain national recognition.

Next slide, please.

So this is CTAP by the numbers.

This is just from November 2024 through November 2025.

We have had 32,000 600 of technical assistance, and that the technical assistance can be from assisting contractors with bid doc review to um helping them obtain or find bid opportunities.

We've had five bond transactions.

Um we have done 80 contractor opportunities and resources.

We have enrolled new 10 new contractors, we've had 20 seminars and education and training from estimating to uh contract review.

We've had um 81 contractor outreach and program marketing as well as 3,000 to 32,000 contractor development services.

We've had contract-based finance support services for one contractor, and we've done 11 program management administration.

Next slide, please.

So the contractor development uh contractor and technical assistance program does individual coaching and assessments and business planning with support.

So we attend pre-bids, we outreach in the community to make sure that we meet contractors that are local, and then what we do is we assign them to an account manager.

That account manager, as well as the rest of the team works with them on the areas that they identify as deficits.

What once we've done that and we started working with them as well as we can then offer the bonding and financial support.

So we have we refer them to um to surety brokers that specialize in small and local contractors, and then we also, as I said before, have the access to contractor um contract-based financing that we can bring to the table.

We also, as I said, offer education and training workshops on various, including bidding, estimating, project management and safety, as well as accounting services.

Um, we have partnerships with the county departments, primes, and professional associations.

For one thing, we attend the Bob Breakfast as well as last month.

We did the contractor academy, spoke on estimating project management, construction management, as well as bonding and insurance.

Next slide, please.

So the partnerships that we have are with GSA Public Works as well as local agencies.

Um we attend events, we reach out to the chambers of commerce, we also work with Cyprus Mandela.

I myself have spoken there as part of their training.

We partner with regional primes, workforce of organizations, the trade associations, we represent CTAP at events, uh, industry days, and academies.

We share on a weekly basis, we have bid opportunities as well as other resources that we send to a weekly basis to the local contracting community, and we facilitate and collaborate with county staff, primes, and contractors to increase participation.

We're going to be meeting this Friday with a Prime to make sure that we can introduce local community local contractors so that they can utilize them for their bid.

Thank you.

Next slide.

Okay, so the highlights we've delivered 11 workshops, three trainings.

We are working on an upcoming training to do to get more certified contractors enrolled.

We've also the highlight is strengthened collaboration with Alameda County GSA to support their outreach.

And we are also tomorrow having a meeting for the county sustainability and green building workshop to maximize participation and impact.

Our contractors weekly reaches 500 contractors and we uh increases engagement with both new and existing SLEB-certified firms through targeted marketing and communications.

One of the contractors success stories that we wanted to highlight was uh Phantom Builders, Beshoy Metri.

Um, it's been a pleasure to work with him.

Our account manager Johanna Le Pen has been working with him and the entire team.

Um he came here from Egypt and he went through the process, learned, became a contractor, and he has received his first contract with the county.

It is the carpet replacement at the tax um collector's office.

And he um we were able to work with him to get bonding.

We worked with him to do a bid doc review.

We walked with him through the county's process to make sure he felt comfortable with it, and it's um it's been one of our real joys to be able to work with him.

Um, next slide, please.

Um, and this is the feedback from Beshoy.

Um, as you can see, it took a village um, you know, to bring all of our skills to help him, but it was a pleasure.

Um, as you can see from this, um, I don't think you need me to read it.

Um, but I was so pleased that he felt that our services and what the county had provided through the contractor technical assistance program was life-changing for him and his family.

He has taken um this project and has is now um taking this success on the road, and um we will continue to work with him through the contract process, which should start soon and be finished within a month.

Next slide, please.

Okay, so looking ahead, um, we want to expand opportunities to strengthen our local contract community and deliver more inclusive high quality projects for the Alameda County.

Um, we want to collaborate.

We would like the county departments and supervisors where possible to collaborate with Merriweather and Williams to identify upcoming projects and outreach opportunities in your areas.

Um we went for contractors, them to enroll in the CTAP program, and um obviously there's no form attached here, but in the end is going to be an email address that they can um click on for prime contractors and community partners.

We'd like to engage with our program to mentor subcontract subcontract and strengthen local supplier diversity and create pathways for emerging contractors to participate in county work.

Um we invite everyone, all of those, the county super county department, supervisors, contractors, and prime contractors and community partners to explore partnerships and upcoming projects or program enrollment to make Alameda County the model for inclusive contracting that it's starting to be that it is.

Next slide, please.

This is the contract, this is our telephone number and our email, the CTAP at imwis.com, is um every team member on the CTAP team receives it.

And so any questions or anyone who would like to enroll in the program can reach us through that email or call us at the number listed there.

Are there any questions?

I I also have a supervisor jam.

Okay.

It's okay.

It's late.

Supervisor Marquez.

Yes, it's okay.

Um hi Jennifer, thank you for that excellent presentation.

Um just a quick question.

I have always heard great things um about your services, and I know we get reports here at procurement, but this is the first time I'm hearing from your actual firm.

So do you know how long you've been in contract with the county?

So since 2008, and we just renewed um, I believe two years or a year and a half ago.

We just renewed our contract and went out to bid and we bid on it again.

Perfect.

Okay, and so um I won't take up too much time because I know it's getting late and we still have another item, but I am going to respectfully ask if you could and um GSA or County Council stop me if this is not an appropriate request, but I think it's an easy one.

Um wondering if you um could create a flyer, something that we as supervisors can share in our newsletter on social media, encouraging people to sign up for this opportunity.

That would be welcome to want to make sure we're doing everything we can to promote your services.

Thank you so much.

We will happily work with GSA to get that over to you this week, if not Monday at the latest.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you for the the update.

Because I don't think we've had an update in the committee for Meriwether and Williams in quite a while.

So it's really great having this update today, and I've been uh a champion of Meriwether and Williams uh for a long time.

In fact, is um Ingrid still there?

Yes, Ingrid uh Ingrid is still with us.

Um she uh is the head of our leadership.

Okay, very good.

Tell her hello for me.

I will.

I will email her right after this meeting.

Yeah, and also um her husband too.

I'm drawing a blank at the moment.

Yes.

Rick Williams, I will let him know as well.

Right.

That's Meriwether and Williams.

Okay, um, and I think it's really really really great that you've had less than one percent bond defaults, compared with 25% uh as the industry average.

I mean, that is, because I know that was one of the big concerns.

Uh getting um contractors, small local emergency contractors, um, minority women on contractors, etc.

Uh, getting them bonded.

And then to see this this figure here, and then also zero defaults on loans.

Uh I just, I mean, I think that's just phenomenal.

I mean, that's beyond phenomenal.

So it just really shows, really shows the you know the value in the work that you're doing and the um the uh the let's say the legitimacy of the county continuing to have this partnership with Merriweather Williams.

And then the contractors that um receive your services, uh, if I'm recalling correctly, they don't have to pay for your services, do they?

No, the services are no cost to the contractors.

Yes, I thought it's it's yeah, that that's um uh tremendous, tremendous.

Then you said you've got national recognition.

Can you talk a little bit more about that possibly?

So um there have been inquiries um across the nation uh from Texas to Charlotte to kind of ask about our program as well as to see if they could model it for their contractors, including um as well as Portland and Seattle.

It's it's really making an impact that they recognize the value of what the county is doing.

Well, great.

So, uh please continue to work with us uh so we can stay on the cutting edge.

I mean, we're great that you're you know, you're getting all this national recognition, and others want to, you know, get the services of Merriweather Williams.

Um, but um please keep working with us and pushing the envelope.

Absolutely.

Uh and then one other thing I wanted to ask uh over the many years since Merriweather Williams has been in operation since 20 since uh for the last 28 years, but with the county since 2000, I think you said eight or something like that.

Um you're working with either with the county as well as with the contractors.

Have there been any lessons learned that um you can think of?

Yes.

Um the big lesson learned, and you know, as as the county has grown and you know worked with us, we've also improved our services, and one is we offered something called aligned risk management.

So we do the work to get the education and the technical assistance for the contractors to get the bonding.

But once they get that, we then even go deeper and do field support to make sure they can stay on track.

We offer um project management construction management as well as other services to keep them and assist them.

So one of the things too is we do contract review, not from a legal standpoint, but a procedural standpoint to make sure that they understand the contract that they're getting into and all the formalities that they need to follow as an example.

And we call it aligned risk management.

Very good, because I think that kind of aligns with my thinking on that or my thought on that.

Cause I I do remember when Bernita Reagan was there, was with you, Merryweather and Williams, how you know we thought that bonding was important, but there's there's there's a you know, there's a bigger universe of things that need to be done to help these contractors.

And I'm just really pleased that we have Merriweather Williams.

Um, and then the other thing I might ask is with the advent of of technology, um AI and other things.

Is there is there any contractors need to be aware of?

So one of the things that we've added to the AI is, you know, we've we've um been working with the contractors on how to use it to their benefit, that they it can be a note taker, that it can be something that can explain the contracts for them, but that they also can't just rely on it.

Um, and so AI can be a really great support for our uh SLEB contractors, and we want to underscore that and teach them how to use it as a really good tool.

Great, great.

Well, like I said, I really value Merriweather and Williams.

I'm I'm happy we're in partnership with you.

I hope it continues and uh and as you continue to utilize your services uh more um globally in other places in our country.

Um, once again, please keep keep looking to push the envelope here and look for cutting edge things that we might consider doing so we can continue to improve.

But I just think it's phenomenal.

No, no bond defaults and no um, excuse me, less than one percent of bond defaults, but no loan defaults.

Um, and the work you're doing with the contractors is just you know, just yeah, it's just fantastic.

So uh let's see, do we have any public speakers on this item?

No speakers.

Okay, all right.

So thanks for bringing the report today.

Uh I just want to ask GSA this report today, like I said, I don't think we've we've received a report directly from Meriwether Williams in a while.

Is you anticipate this being annually every two years?

What do you envision in terms of them coming to the full committee?

I think that would be appropriate.

It dawned on me, they hadn't been here in some time, probably quite a while.

And then we have a new board member also on your committee, and they and we talk about them, but I thought it would be good for them to speak.

I'm also asking staff to invite Devai Sloan to come and speak about the joint advisory committee, so you can learn more about that.

Um, sometimes you don't just want to hear from me.

But anyway, there we have a lot of good great resources, and I do also want to encourage you on LinkedIn, Merriweather Williams posts their newsletter, their contractor weekly.

Um, it I mean their contractor newsletter, and so I follow that and read it's not just counting contracts, but any in our East Bay, the East Bay newsletter.

They have an LA one too, but I care about the East Bay.

So a lot of all these resources and events that they do.

So I encourage you to get the word out if you can on your um websites, but um really great to work with Maryweather Williams, um, fabulous resource for us.

So we are gonna, I do think annually is a good idea, as well as some of our other resources to come and speak to you.

Okay, well, thanks.

There was one other point, sir.

You had asked me about Cypress Mandela, and staff let me know that they do come to the joint advisory committee, and we are getting apprentices uh from that program.

Okay, okay.

So I think that concludes this item.

There's no public speakers on this item.

Um, once again, if there are no public speakers on anything under item one, I'm gonna go to item two.

I think we've covered all the GSA items 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, and we've asked for public speakers and all for those.

All right, so thank you, GSA.

So now we'll go to item two, the auditor, controller, recorder for Alameda County.

The great Melissa Wilkes, the best auditor, controller, recorder in the state.

Good evening.

My name is Melissa Wilk.

I am the auditor controller, clerk recorder for Alameda County, and I'm here today to uh provide an updated progress report on county procurement.

The report today will cover the period of July 1, 2009 through the last fiscal year, June 30, 2025.

Uh this report, along with all the prior quarters and your reports are available on our website.

So for this report, uh, we break it out into total payments up to 500,000 and then total payments, including those over 500,000.

So total payments up to 500,000 uh for that period of time was 2.36 billion.

1.38 billion was paid to local contracts, which equals almost 60% of total dollars up to $500,000 going to local contractors.

1.15 billion was paid to minority women business enterprises and small local emerging business contractors, which equals uh 48% of total dollars up to 500,000.

And then by category, payments to these MWBE SLEB contractors includes 115.6 million for construction, which is about 39% of construction dollars.

Architecture and engineering had about 35.3 million during that period, which equals 54.6%.

Professional services was 461 million, which again totaled almost 60 percent of the dollars up to 500,000.

Uh goods and services totaled 539%, which was about 44%.

And again, we include um all those amounts over 500,000.

So for that same period, uh total payments uh were 5.3 billion, 2.8 billion uh was paid to local contractors, which equals 50 about 53% of all of the total dollars.

1.9 billion was paid to the minority women business and SLEB contractors, which is about 35% of total dollars, uh payments to the MWBE SLEB uh contractors by category includes construction of 303 million or 28%, AE at 51.3, which is 46.7%, professional services, uh 640% at 31% or sorry, sorry, 640 million, which is 31.78%, and then goods and services, uh total of 884 million, uh, which is 41% of total dollars spent on goods and services.

Um, again, this report totals about 60 pages, it's online um at our website, including all prior reports.

And I did want to give a brief update.

Um, I wanted to follow up on the EBIA question.

So it it did go fairly dormant, especially during COVID.

Um, this is the East Bay Interagency group.

Um, it picked back up again in 2024, and now it's really starting to ramp back up.

It's not meeting as often.

Um, but all of the new partners or the new representatives for the areas, including Oakland, AC, uh transit, the county, and the port have been meeting.

Uh they had two outreach meetings in the summer.

They had one at the airport and then one um at AC Transit, and about a hundred people showed up at both of the events, and they were billed for certification, small local emerging business certification, and then contracting opportunities.

Um, and now we're looking to uh hold another outreach event someplace else throughout the county.

We're looking actually at the Hayward Library.

So that's been great, and we've been we use that opportunity to kick off our online certification process so people actually could come to the events and get certified right there and then so they didn't have to spend in paperwork.

Um, and so we're really moving uh closely or working closely with GSA and trying to streamline the certification process.

So that's an update on that.

What about BART?

Because Bart was a member too.

You know, I don't think BART has been a partner, but they are reaching out to all the other members.

Yeah, and I'll I'll provide you more of an update too, but um, it's it's really starting to pick back up again because I think a lot of people retired and then COVID and so yeah, but we've been planning outreach events together, so it's it's been good.

Okay.

So if I say more cats.

I don't have any questions at this time.

Thank you.

Yeah, uh so I appreciate that update on East Banner Agency Alliance, and we'll still have uh GSA.

Uh we'll put on as an agenda item in the near future in the future.

Um, the one thing I was thinking about with this report when you're going going over these numbers, because this report covers such a long period of time, July 1st, 2009 up until the present, or not even the present, but June 30th of 2025.

Um would it be too much of a burden for us to kind of see um a chart to see all these uh under 500,000 and over 500,000 in the breakdown, how it's fluctuated or you know, stayed the same over that operating.

Is that something that can be produced, or is that going to be too much of a burden?

No, we can look at that, and I have been talking to staff because we've been preparing this report since Pat O'Connell was here.

So, you know, very long time.

And I kind of like to see how things have if they've tried approved or changed, or yeah.

We we do that for I think we've been doing that for goods and services, but we haven't been doing it for the other categories or race or by dollar amount.

Um, they're all to your point charts, and we tried to, because it was such a long period, we provide charts for by each quarter, by each fiscal year, and then the cumulative reports, and then breaking it out by you know the category and then the race.

So we can look at it, and if there's any specific areas you want to see as a chart that you think would be most interesting, if you want to see goods and services under 500,000 over the last 10 years, or goods and services under 25,000, we can you know show a trend line for that.

Um, we did that with local as well, because that was a question or a request a few years ago.

So, you know, if you have any thoughts on, you know, summaries you want to see.

Well, my thought was just looking at you know the first page of the report, uh payments up to 500,000 and payments over 500,000, and then um how it has uh trended with uh construction, AE, professional services, goods and services.

Now, if that's just too much, um I'll take whatever.

We can take a look at it, yeah.

Just to kind of get a kind of a historical perspective on this.

Yeah, so we can take these summary pieces of information and then put them in a chart with a trend line um by category.

I can tell you typically, you know, our goal is really to try to get a 20% slab and inclusion.

Um, and we're almost I I don't think we've ever fallen under that in any of the categories, which has been great.

So I do think that showing it as a trend will show that it has been consistently um achieving the goals that we've had, so we can do that.

We can just take these two sections and put them on a graph and see how it looks.

Yeah, and you present your report quarterly.

We do, yeah.

And it the uh September 30th should be on our website in the next week or two.

Okay.

So when we do our next um committee meeting, so it's again I don't want to burden your office with too much.

Um you'll have the quarterly report.

It takes us up to September, but um you won't have the trend lines at that point, will you?

Yeah, we can look at it.

We can see when is our our next meeting?

Is in the late January, January, late February.

I mean, if if you don't have it, then we can you know, we could put we could at least come with a draft that you can look at to see if it works for you know what you're trying to see.

But yeah, okay, all right.

Yeah, there are no any other questions.

Is it possible?

I think I've asked this in the past.

Um, is there a way to narrow the focus and just like the last five years and not go all the way back to 2009?

So some of them we we've been trying to kind of provide different uh time periods so you can really focus in on like the prior year or the prior five years.

So we do have it by quarter, we've got it by year.

We don't have it by five years.

We could look at doing something similar to that.

Um and see how it looks, but and see how much time it takes to recreate it, but we can look at it.

And it comes up every time we have the meeting that this time period is very long.

Um maybe what we could even do is do the trend lines for like the last five years, the last 10 years, the last 20 or however 20 years basically almost or 15.

So we can we can look at that.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Okay.

Do you have any public speakers on this item?

No speakers.

Alright, well, thank you.

Sure.

Melissa, auditor, controller, clerk, recorder.

I think there are no questions because so far the staff has done such a great job with their reporting.

I attribute it to the to the committee.

Now, the main event, item number three, the disparity study update.

Uh good evening, supervisors.

Uh Andrea Weddle, Chief Assistant County Counsel at the Office of the County Council.

Um, I was asked to come and provide you with an update regarding the disparity study, uh, where we are in working to get that document completed and presented to you.

Um, we have not made much progress in the last few years, as you have noted, and uh we are doing our best to accelerate that effort and to complete the task.

Um Mysen Tillman and Associates was retained by the county uh to perform what is called a Crozen or disparity study uh sometime in September of 2020.

Um they then uh began the work of gathering data uh for the three-year study period, uh which was I believe running from 2017 through 2020, and that is the the data source.

And I understand um Laura Lloyd with the auditor's office is the project manager um and and has been working with Mason Tillman over that period of time to assist them in gathering the data um to address questions that they have uh in relationship to um the rules of pre procurement that the county follows and other information that they needed to inform their uh draft document and of their study.

Um they provided early on certain chapters of the study to our office.

Over the few years that this has been ongoing, we've had three different attorneys assigned to this task.

I have now inherited the project and have been working on it for probably a little over a year.

Mason Tillman provided us with the various our office, County Council's office with the draft documents because the scope of work in the contract requires them to quote develop an analysis of case law and its impact, end quote on the study that they're providing, and that that legal analysis is subject to review and approval by our office.

So it was not just uh chapter one, which is called the legal analysis chapter, where there is case law review, but it is in almost every chapter, all 11 chapters of the document contains various case law analysis and conclusions made by Mason Tillman and their analysis of the various data.

So we have been reviewing all of those chapters and have provided comments on chapters one through eight, leaving uh four chapters remaining, two of which are primarily statistical analysis, one of which is recommendations.

It's a very important chapter with the legal conclusions that they contain therein.

Um I will say that when we provided our comments to Mason Tillman, about five months later we received responses to those 15-20 pages of comments, detailed comments, and um in some cases uh they were in agreement, so they would make various changes in response to our concerns, and others they were resistant.

We said that they did disagreed with our our issues, and in some cases there was a sort of a mixed response where it's like, do we have concurrence or not?

Although they have said in some instances that they will make revisions.

They are, and as I learned today, have not provided a new draft to us so that we can see what changes were made.

I understand their intent is to wait until they have all of our comments to send back a singular draft.

I do want to say that that we have identified a number of of factual in legal statements we where we have an unresolved disagreement, and including in the interpretation of recent uh U.S.

Supreme Court law and how it applies certain key cases applied to the study itself.

We will have to work through those in order for us to approve as to form the draft study itself.

Um so um my goal, our intent is to um first of all to to complete.

We have completed the review and I have notes and comments regarding the remaining chapters.

We need to provide those to Mason Tillman, get their response back, get the next draft of the document.

But the more important um step I believe we need to take is a conversation with your full board, and we will be teeing that up in the very near future.

We need you to provide some direction as to where, if and when we do have a dispute that cannot be reconciled, uh, where do we go from there?

So that's a critical issue as to how to proceed with completion of the disparity study, so that it can come to you and you can and uh get to read it and see what recommendations they have made and make some decisions.

So that's what I have.

I'm uh more than glad to answer any questions, and I think Laura may be online and can speak more to the communication she has had with Mason Tillman.

Okay.

So uh Laura Lloyd has her hand up, so let's hear from Laura.

Hi, supervisors, it's Laura.

Excuse me.

Um I don't have any additional information to provide with uh with what the council was saying.

If you have specific questions about the correspondence with Mason Tillman, or any information that I can share prior to uh your uh to a briefing and closed session, feel free to ask.

Right.

So let me see if Suez or Case has any questions or comments before I jump in.

Um thank you, Laura, for being here.

I do recall um when I serve serving on this committee that we've had at least one updated touch point.

I don't recall when that was, but do you recall just maybe it was like a status update or bringing something to this committee in terms of just how things were unfolding with this contract?

So excuse me, this committee has not received an update on the study findings, because before the study findings can be discussed publicly, uh or the report accepted, it requires council to give their legal review.

Okay, and that is the case that um has not occurred.

Okay, I I guess I might be confusing things.

I because I know that the question's been asked, and I feel like I've I heard you bring up like we're still reviewing chapters.

So do you recall, like if we if it was ever on the agenda, I guess the uh this item um or an update regarding the study was on your agenda for December 16, 2024.

And at that time, I believe Dr.

Ramsey um did speak on the issue and uh outline some of her concerns.

Um some of the areas where we have disagreement and and so and and yes, at that time we had just provided um the chapters one through seven and eight through eleven were remaining, and it was five months later that we received the responsive comments, and so that's where we've been going back and forth.

Okay, thank you.

I just wanted to remember just timestamp in terms of my reference pointing and hearing any type of information on this item.

Um so I I appreciate the update, and I I'm hearing that we do um need to make some decisions, which will require um input from the entire board.

So I do respect that process and we'll um defer to that opportunity, but thank you.

Okay, so um a few of my questions and or comments.

So uh the if your analysis will be coming to the board in closed session, is that right or wrong?

So typically we don't uh disclose whether we're going to have an item that is um discussed in closed session unless it is one that is on the agenda.

Um but I think that is typically how we would have a conversation with you on this type of issue.

Because okay, um, because of the legal uh matters now.

When do you anticipate the board hearing this?

Very very soon.

You think before the end of the calendar year?

You mean you mean in an open session or very very soon?

Very very soon, okay.

Great, great.

That's good.

So hopefully before the end of the calendar year.

Um because you know uh I know county council's been understaffed.

Um Andrea mentioned how three different attorneys have had this and now she's got it, and we and I know Supervisor Marquez uh knows how much work Andrea does for us on many media fronts and how there's a particular matter that just won't go away.

You know, it has to deal with a particular facility out in East Oakland that takes up a lot of our time.

I'm not gonna spell it out, but I think you know what facility I'm talking about.

Um it has to do with a lot of entertainment and sports activities.

Um Andrea's been working on that, so I do want to give county council you know some cover, but I also want to know I'm frustrated.

Um I do know we had the pandemic too, that required a lot of a lot of work, but we need to get this done because as I said before, the information, the study periods 2017 to roughly 2020, roughly three years.

Um I mean, we're in 2025 now.

We'll be going to 2026 next year, so um the the the data might be stale, and if we were to consider taking up some of the recommendations, some of those recommendations might not be as appropriate today because the data is stale.

We might have to refresh the data.

And if the board wanted to go at risk on some of the legal uh perspectives, if we don't if the data is not um contemporary, then that could produce uh problems for us too in terms of how we might proceed uh with this.

And uh the last Cross of Study was done in 2004, was it?

Yeah, 2004.

Um, so that's a long, long, long, long time ago.

Um, yeah, long, long time ago, 2004, that's like 20 years ago, 21 years ago.

And so we've we did an updated crossing study, but we still haven't moved forward with it.

And I know people have asked me, um, and I keep telling them, well, I haven't even seen the material.

I think Supervisor Marquez uh asked that question if the actual reports come to the board and Laura pointed it out.

It hasn't come to the board, the board hasn't seen it, it's been under, you know, carefully guarded by county council, and I haven't tried to um see anything.

I've respected the the process and the time associated with the analysis, but you know, we've got to get this accomplished, and then uh if county council's analysis has to go back to Mason Tillman for response.

Once again, I'm not speaking for Mason Tillman, I just don't know.

Um are they, she's still in a contract to do a response, or would there be would we have to amend it?

I mean, it's been a long time, I mean she was here in 2024, December, that was a year ago.

Um, do we expect a response from her, or will she say like she can't give a response because it's not part of her I would have to defer to uh Laura Lloyd as to the status of the contract.

I know that it has been uh extended at least once, if not twice, um, whether one the second one may have been a time only extension, but but Laura would be able to answer questions.

Laura, can you can you help there?

Yeah, yes, the contract is expired, and I can pull up the date, but it's probably been expired for over a year, and we uh decided not to extend it until the time that we could better calculate when council would have their responses, because if we extend it out six months, but council hadn't provided their responses, then we would have to extend it out again.

So, yes, the contract is expired, but we are not prevented prevented from extending it time only uh to allow time for Mason Tillman to reply to council's edits.

So, Laura, you really expect, and I'm not trying to put um put you on the spot, but you really expect that Mason Telman will agree to a time-only extension without additional compensation.

I guess it would depend on the amount of changes that are recommended in council's review of the final chapters.

So so far they have provided their review for chapters one through seven, and so now we are focusing on chapters uh eight through twelve.

Okay, so all right.

Well, county council said this will be to the board very very soon, and then um I guess we'll get it to uh Mason Tillman, but before we can get it to Mason Tillman, we'll have to do a contract extension with Mason Tillman time only if see if that's acceptable, or if we'll have to do additional compensation there, and then Mason Tillman will re respond and then we'll see.

So, I mean, all this could play out in the whole calendar year of 2026, so I'll just see what happens.

But it is a little frustrating.

Um, the why this is taking so long.

And why I consider this so important, is I'm not saying there's any um uh promo fascia uh discrimination on the part of any county uh contracting practices or policies or anything like that, but if there if there is from the Mason Tillman analysis of the data, and if county council concurs, let's say, then we can put in place um uh remedies to address that that we wouldn't be able to put in place otherwise.

Is that accurate, county council?

Well, certainly there are uh options for various remedies that are proposed in chapter 11 of the study, uh, some of which are uh uh what we refer to as race and gender neutral and uh are variously policy decisions, and I think there are remedies that will come forward that your board uh can consider.

Um the difficulty that we are facing is with with proposals for race conscious and gender conscious uh remedies, okay.

So, you know, I can't even uh speak to any of that until we actually know what county council thinks and we know what what's been prepared and we can kind of battle that around, but I'm just a little frustrated that this is gonna um play out even longer uh in 2026, but hope you know hopefully we'll be able to bring it to some uh conclusion next year.

Um, hope I'm not having to speak to this at this committee this time in 2026.

I really really hope we've gotten this behind us, and we're on to uh implementation, and if uh the board approves a certain direction or directions, uh, if that's something that we're challenged around, then we'll we'll see if we're challenged.

But the point is we want to get us moving forward on this, so and I know with this present administration things are not as um as um uh sympathetic as they might have been with the with the former administration, uh particularly when it relates to the uh the legal matters.

Okay, so do we have any speakers on this item?

No speakers, no speakers, all right.

Okay, so thank you for this update today on the cross on the crossing study on the disparity study.

And um, are there any uh public comment on non-agendized items?

No public comment.

Okay, so this committee uh meeting uh is it oh yes, oh, so we actually do have it broken out for the prior five years.

I I thought we did, but I wasn't sure.

So I want to go back and look.

So um we do have it broken out um for the prior five fiscal years for all payments up to 500,000, um and it's the J.

It's J one through eight, the charts at the very end, um, and we have the M the MWBE slab payments um by agency and department, and then do you see the range now?

Thank you for flagging that.

I see July 1st, 2020 through June 30th, 2025.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

But we will look at putting visual charts together and maybe developing like a supplement summary to this report.

Yeah, I the charts are helpful, and I apologize I didn't see that, but maybe just on the actual um letter itself flagging that because to me it's it's I understand why we have to collect this, but having it be on the first page as going back to 2009.

For me, what's most relevant is like what's been occurring in the last five years, especially yeah, the pandemic, like just it's too hard to like wrap my head around, you know, 10 plus years ago.

You know, that time has passed.

It's good to have it captured here, but I that's just my preference, just focusing on the recent pass.

Yeah, we can do that.

And I know in the past we've kept it cumulative because there can be significant variances between quarters based on payments.

If there's a large project, you might have a huge increase or decrease in a certain category.

So keeping it over a longer period of time tends to show what the the real trend is, but you know, that was also 15 years ago.

So we can we can look at that, yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Sorry to stick around that long for that, but thank you.

Well, Melissa's elected official.

Yeah, she she she's a servant of the people.

So anyway, so our next committee meeting will be sometime in late January, early February.

Um Supervisor Marquez's office and my office of work with the clerk's office to determine the exact date.

So if you want to have a good holiday, and this committee is now, kudos to our clerk.

Clerking, I don't know if it's your first meeting, but you did a great job.

So thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

So we are now adjourned.