0:00
Okay, so good afternoon, everyone.
0:02
It's uh Monday, May the 18th.
0:06
I'd like to call the procurement and contracting committee to order.
0:17
Any instructions we need to provide?
0:21
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0:24
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0:34
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0:40
The speaker cards are at the front of the room, and I am the clerk.
0:43
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0:48
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0:53
Dialing it again allows you to lower your hand.
0:56
The clerk will call your name when it is time for public comment.
0:59
If you are in person, please come to the podium to speak.
1:02
If you're online or dialed in, the clerk will call your name and allow you to unmute.
1:07
That concludes the clerk instructions for public comment.
1:11
So we have a short agenda this afternoon.
1:14
First item is the quarterly report from the auditor controller.
1:35
My name is Melissa Wilk.
1:37
I'm the Alameda County Auditor Controller, Clerk Recorder, and I'm here to present the updated progress report on county procurement.
1:46
The information presented today is based on payments made to contractors for the period covering July 1, 2009 through March 31st, 2026.
1:58
Page A1 of this report includes total payments made up to $500,000.
2:05
The total amount for that period was $2.53 billion.
2:10
$1.48 billion was paid to local contractors, which equals about 58% of total dollars up to $500,000.
2:18
$1.23 billion was paid to minority women business enterprises and small local emerging business contractors, which equals 48% of total dollars up to $500,000.
2:32
Payments made to the MWBE SLEB contractors by category include construction of 125.5 million, architecture and engineering, 38.3 million, professional services, 499.3 million, and goods and services, 570 million.
2:54
Also included in the report are all payments to contractors, including amounts over 500,000.
3:01
This data is presented in summary on page A2.
3:05
And again, it's for the period July 1, 2009 through the most recent quarter, ending March 31st, 2026.
3:13
And total payments included are included in the report are $5.72 billion.
3:20
$3 billion were paid to local contractors, which is over 50% of total dollars.
3:26
2 billion was paid to minority women business enterprises and small local emerging business contractors, which equals 35% of total dollars paid to contractors.
3:38
And then by category, the payments to our MWBE SLEB contractors include construction of $334 million, which is $28% of all payments made for construction dollars, architecture and engineering, $56.8 million, which is almost 50%.
3:57
Professional services, $691 million, which is 32%.
4:02
And goods and services, 932.7 million, which is 41.3% of goods and services for that period of time.
4:13
Again, all of the reports, including this one, are um included on our website.
4:19
And we do plan based on the Board of Supervisors recommendation to bring back the more streamlined uh report with uh the July 1st um quarterly, um which I'm sorry, which will cover July 1 through September.
4:34
So the first quarter of the next fiscal year will uh start the new report.
4:39
Um, and I just wanted to show you the difference.
4:41
We've got kind of a draft, so this is the difference in the size of the reports.
4:46
So uh the proposed uh uh streamlined report would include the prior five years, which would be July 1, 2020 through December 31, 2025.
4:59
It'll include all payments as well as continue to uh provide minority women business enterprises and our slab payments.
4:58
It'll include prior fiscal year payments by quarter as well as by category.
4:59
It'll include current fiscal year and that fiscal year quarters and then uh as well as slab data charts and our um information on our supplier pool.
5:23
So I just wanted to give you a quick update that uh on that, and I'm available for questions.
5:30
So that's Mark has any questions.
5:32
No questions at this time, thank you.
5:35
I'm glad to uh hear the status of a more streamlined and uh contemporary report.
5:43
So looking forward to that.
5:45
Um, because based on the information here, um, I don't necessarily have any questions at the moment either, um, but potentially I think once we get a report that's more contemporary over the last five years, there might be some questions, particularly if the um the numbers are drastically different in terms of the percentages for um local for slab or my uh in WBE and SLAP.
6:20
So we'll just wait and see over 500, less than 500.
6:25
So it's at the moment.
6:27
Yeah, I don't have any questions either.
6:30
Uh, do we have any public speakers on this item?
6:34
There are no public comments on this item.
6:37
Okay, appreciate the uh the auditor can continuing to provide us with such thorough and comprehensive information.
6:51
That's very much appreciated.
6:53
Sure, and all the historical data we still will maintain if we do decide we want to add or edit somehow any of the revised reports.
7:04
And I know that the disparity studies not in your shop anymore.
7:08
That's in county council, right?
7:11
Uh we're reviewing the recommendations and uh the status of the recommendations from the report and we hope to bring that um to the next working group along with county council.
7:28
There's no other questions, no public speakers.
7:33
We continue to have these reports to maintain a sense of um transparency and give folks an opportunity to kind of look at our you know our procurement efforts.
7:47
So now we'll go to uh the public works agency for their quarterly report on uh procurement.
7:56
Good afternoon, Daniel Will Design Beth Director of Public Works.
8:00
Uh I'm glad to present our biannual report on uh public works agency's uh workforce and business outreach report.
8:11
Uh fundamentally, I'm sharing the screen.
8:13
Hopefully, you can see it, but you have the memo that that uh prepared uh for this meeting.
8:19
The we our strategic objective primarily is to really provide local, you know, uh opportunity for local job creation, uh, inclusive inclusive participation uh in the construction uh industry uh trying to stimulate the economic outlook uh in Alameda County by encouraging these contracting opportunities to local and small local businesses uh and uh obviously capacity building so that we have uh the opportunity uh for smaller uh less uh resourced uh organizations to be able to join the market uh in a more competitive fashion.
9:01
These are the strategic objectives that drive uh our effort in both the workforce uh as well as the outreach uh activities.
9:10
Uh if you look at the in terms of the workforce report uh during this period, which is uh between September 1st uh through April 30th, 2026, uh we have uh seven seventy-nine point five, 79,500 hours of uh construction labor hours in public course projects.
9:35
Of those, 33% represent local employment, uh, 54% minority participation, uh, about almost 11% apprenticeship uh opportunities, and uh unfortunately less than 1% uh gender representation in terms of women in the construction industry.
9:58
Uh, if you look at the ethnic breakdown, the uh we continue to see uh substantial presence of the Hispanic or Latino group in the construction industry at 49.6 percent uh and followed by the other category, those are the folks that are not either willing to provide uh ethnic identity information.
10:21
Uh uh that's a growing percentage right now, 39%, almost 40%, followed by Caucasian, about 7%, Asian or 2%, and African American 1.4%.
10:34
So uh in terms of uh some insight into these numbers, uh basically uh we continue to see a substantial majority of the construction workforce uh constitutes uh the Hispanic community.
10:50
Uh and this continues to be uh the force that represents the construction industry uh industry-wide.
10:57
And uh we continue to promote this minority participation at the same time, explore how we can expand uh construction workforce participation uh in other in other groups.
11:09
Uh as you can see the Caucasian uh participation at about 11.1% is somewhat aligned with industry standards.
11:19
Uh the African-American community at 2.3% of workers uh represents uh very limited numbers, uh and has been somewhat uh at that level.
11:30
I will be discussing uh when I talk about the workforce trends.
11:34
Uh the Asian as well as the other category, like I said, has become the other category become increasingly uh significant number in terms of workforce uh descriptions.
11:46
So uh one of the things that I just described is about a six month timeline or window, the recent snapshot of what the workforce looks like.
11:56
And I was kind of curious to see, are we seeing any other trends over time, uh, any changes?
12:03
So I decided to do about a five-year or five and a half if you include this current period of five and a half year uh trend analysis to look at uh how does that look?
12:14
So the table that you just see right there by uh labor hours and localities, as you can see, the distribution.
12:22
I think the percentages probably are better descriptions right here.
12:27
Uh, if you look at, as you can see, uh it really is fairly flat, straight line almost.
12:34
Uh you know, if you if you take the half year out from 2025 to 2021, uh all the categories in terms of local residents, total minority apprenticeship, uh, all these categories, including the total women hours uh at the bottom, they all are flat and straight.
12:52
No real changes is happening uh over time.
12:55
It seems like there's some degree of equilibrium, both by uh residency as well as uh uh minority versus non-minority workforce distributions.
13:06
And this is what this uh is showing you in terms of the trend lines, at least over a five-year period, uh the distribution is fairly fairly much straight-line distribution.
13:19
And if you look at it from uh uh a specific ethnic group categories, uh the only awkward one is the one in the middle that you can see went up from about 10% up to about almost 50% is the other category over the last uh uh three and a half years or three years.
13:40
And I can't find an explanation as to why that was happening, or if that increase has affected any other categories.
13:49
And as you can see, the rest of them are fairly straightforward.
13:52
It's fairly constant.
13:53
Uh, and the numbers kind of tell you if you look at the percentages uh along the any one of the ethnic groups, they're fairly kind of close to each other.
14:03
So if we took the largest majority in the workforce, which is the Hispanic, you can see by the hours, for example, you're ranging between uh, you know, 46 to 52 percent over five and a half year period, which is really uh for this kind of data, fairly flat-lined uh information.
14:21
So the only one that kind of show some kind of abnormal abnormal or what are called data-wise unusual uh distribution is the one, the other category.
14:31
So the other category uh in uh 2021 was about 10%, and kept going up until about 2024, and it kind of flat lines after that.
14:42
So uh I can't give you what the explanation is for that.
14:46
Uh I haven't uh delved into it too much, but uh I can only just share this data.
14:52
Uh the numbers show them.
14:54
Hopefully, uh there's no data error or something in the in that number.
14:58
But the rest of them, as you can see, are fairly consistent with the previous data that I shared with you.
15:05
So, what does that mean?
15:07
Basically, is a question.
15:09
Uh to me, the the what it this tells you is that we've reached some kind of equilibrium within the demographic distribution uh of the workforce that uh at least uh some of the effort that the county is doing trying to outreach and build capacity has maintained that constant uh supply uh of workforce.
15:30
So managing basically the supply and demand has kind of uh gotten to a position of equilibrium.
15:37
So we'll continue to uh to make sure that we we maintain the current distribution at a minimum uh so that uh outreach uh will continue to be effective in providing the opportunities to uh all minority groups as well as all participation uh participating workforce uh and as well as providing apprenticeship and uh training opportunities uh for small and local businesses in our business outreach effort, which uh we'll go to the next slide to discuss.
16:08
So our business outreach effort basically the objective is uh to provide contracting opportunities to uh to all participants, uh especially small uh and minority businesses, uh, create market awareness when you know businesses are coming up when bids are out and uh when opportunities come on, and then create also partnership development, which is uh between small uh prime larger prime contractors and small and subcontracting groups that generally are a proxy to uh small local as well as minority businesses.
16:46
And that's the out the objective.
16:48
So the outcome in terms of our projects uh uh is that uh project advertised or awarded there were 26 uh transportation and flood control projects uh that were advertised between September and April 26th.
17:02
Uh the list of projects is included uh if you're interested to see them.
17:07
Uh and then we've done previewed meetings, bid openings and various other activities, uh, except the nine projects are still pending awards so uh we'll continue to do uh preconstruction meeting after that after that.
17:21
And the winning bid analysis shows that local Alameda County uh prime contractors secured approximately 27% of all the winning bids.
17:30
Uh a proactive approach has been uh to strengthen our partnership with Alameda CTAP, for example, by involving their team early in the outreach efforts, uh ensuring local contractors receive timely guidance and support in terms of bonding bonding capacity through CTAP, and that has been a very successful partnership.
17:50
Uh, in terms of subcontractor participation, there were 86 subcontractors in these projects, and about 31% were local.
17:59
Uh and we are tracking and analyzing that participation trend uh to make sure that we continue to encourage uh participation by small uh subcontracting industry folks uh in our in our projects.
18:15
So the next couple of pages are just a list of projects, and you can see them uh if you if you're curious about what the projects entail.
18:24
Uh, but these are typically the typical our road and flood control projects uh listed uh in all of these projects, as you know, have to come to your board for award uh to the low bidder, and we have to follow public contracting court to ensure that uh we get the low bid uh as appropriate.
18:43
So, in terms of business outreach activities and capacity building uh public works uh uh business outreach with uh with the support of our Luster National, which is our consultant that's doing the outreach effort for us, have been doing uh the business opportunity for uh building opportunities for business or Bob breakfast programs, as well as the construction contractor academy that is uh offered at least twice uh a year on October 29, between October 29 and 31 uh last year that we hosted the 11th annual uh construction contractors academy.
19:22
Uh, as you can see in the table, there was there were 34 participants who represented about 28 companies, and some of the folks have were willing to provide uh whether they were DBE, MBE or SBE certified, and so you can see the list of companies that and the percentages under those categories of certification.
19:44
These are all, by the way, certification were self-reported uh by the attendees.
19:50
So there's no there was no verification process for that, but uh it was part of the submittal and their in their registration.
19:58
Those who are willing to provide, they did.
20:00
Uh so that's what we have.
20:02
On January 31st, 2026, we hosted our first uh uh building business for uh building opportunities for business or Bob Breakfast for the calendar year 2026.
20:15
Uh this event focused on highlighting upcoming construction contracting opportunities at various agencies in Alameda County.
20:23
This includes Public Works, of course, General Service Agency, the Port of Oakland, uh BART, East Bay Municipal, uh Utility District, ACTC, uh, the housing authority of Alameda County and the City of San Leandro Public Works, as well as the City of Oakland.
20:39
So, as you can see, uh the Bob Breakfast effort has kind of expanded beyond Alameda County Public Works and kind of bring in all these other players so that they can introduce their projects to uh the business community through the Bob Breakfast.
20:55
And there were a total of 94 participants, of which 82 were participating businesses, and then uh we plan on May 29th, uh, we will be hosting the mid-year building uh Bob Breakfast, basically the same effort trying to get people to introduce their projects, what's coming up in the second half of 2026 and early 2027, and provide this opportunity of upcoming businesses.
21:27
Basically, that market awareness that I was talking about earlier as an objective is done through this Bob Breakfast.
21:34
And those who are interested in bidding will have an advanced notice of what's coming up so that they can prepare uh for this for these bids.
21:44
In July uh 30th and 31st, we will be hosting our 12th annual construction contractors academy, uh, in partnership with CTAP, uh, East Bay Builders Exchange and other local construction contracting agencies.
21:59
Here, the objective, of course, is to teach some of these small businesses how to bid with in a public setting, public contracting code and requirements, uh, you know, bonding requirements and all of these things are included in the discussions, and most of them uh smaller uh contractors don't have the administrative capacity sometimes to kind of learn some of these things at on at their own pace.
22:24
So we provide this opportunity for them to learn.
22:26
So these are the two areas that, like I said, so in terms of uh, you know, future considerations and looking at the data, we say, you know, like I said, hiring local 27%.
22:39
Uh, we think it could be raised a little bit higher, uh, even though the data, like I said, show the flat line basically over year over year.
22:48
Uh, I think we should continue to make every effort at a minimum not to go below the 27%.
22:53
But uh uh best case scenario is to raise it up a little bit so that local uh primes uh can participate uh more in the public works uh hiring practices or my uh project practices.
22:59
So that's one of our objective in terms of the future.
23:10
Uh gender diversity, uh women remain fairly unrepresented in the workforce.
23:15
Uh so we will have to continue to see where we can collaborate with industry partners, training programs that focused on women uh and trade uh maybe could help in diversifying the pipeline.
23:28
So right now the challenge is uh not having the the women workforce in the construction industry in the pipeline.
23:36
So hopefully uh some additional effort uh working with Luster might get us some uh increase in that in that percentages.
23:44
In terms of subcontractor participation, 27% of subcontractors participated, uh represent local subcontractors uh in the winning bid, as I stated earlier.
23:56
So uh tailored maybe mentorship pairing of programs, maybe um uh working on more robustly on the Bob Breakfast and connecting small subcontractors with the larger ones uh is something that we continue to work on, and we hope that sometime in the future there will be increasing number of local subcontractors participating.
24:15
So uh in conclusion, uh basically, uh as stated uh earlier, the distribution of the workforce by locality ethnicity has remained largely unchanged over time.
24:29
Uh this stability for me shows that local labor market equilibrium in which both supply of workers and demand for labor are relatively uh steady or stable.
24:40
So uh we need to continue to work on to uh at least maintain that steady state uh of balance between supply and demand uh with an effort to make sure that local participation is uh always having an age, uh at least maintaining uh the position that they hold right now uh in participating in our in our uh construction uh contracts.
25:06
Uh otherwise the number seems to kind of indicate a great deal of stability, both by ethnicity as well as locality uh over time over five-year period.
25:16
Uh so we will continue, like I said, to to work hard to strengthen uh the impact of some of our efforts and see where we can actually improve as time goes on.
25:28
Uh otherwise, I would say all efforts to date has been uh a success in my mind because uh we have not been declining in the way, we have not seen any decline in the way of participation by different groups, both localities and ethnic groups over time.
25:45
So I think that's a plus uh overall.
25:48
Uh with that, I'd be happy to answer any question you may have.
25:55
Thank you for the report.
25:56
Um I'll turn to Supervisor Marquez first.
25:59
And thank you, Chair Miley.
26:00
Uh, thank you, Director Waldes and Bent for the presentation.
26:04
Um, just want to be clear.
26:06
Um, is the purpose of this report to address the community um project and stabilization benefits agreement?
26:15
No, I think that's usually managed by through GSA.
26:18
Uh so GSA will provide that information when they present uh uh uh during the next quarter, I believe.
26:26
Okay, and that would be the same for um the housing bond measure A1 and our requirements under that.
26:32
That is also a separate report.
26:34
I believe so because public works is not involved in the housing bond uh delivery.
26:41
Just wanted to make sure I was clear on that.
26:43
Um, so specific to this report, are there any legal requirements to the apprenticeship hours or any like metrics that we need to be meeting?
26:56
Or is this just a general overview and how we're doing?
27:00
This is mostly a general overview uh of how we're doing, but we put in our specifications that contractors are required to acquire uh a certain ratio of apprenticeship to uh journey level uh employment.
27:15
So uh we we try to maintain that.
27:18
And I think uh over time we have maintained, like I said, a stable uh relationship of apprenticeship efforts.
27:26
Okay, and then um just noting I do appreciate the progress that is made, especially with the outreach efforts with the breakfast that was held.
27:36
Um, there was a uh construction academy.
27:29
There is uh breakfast in January, and then another one coming up um next week.
27:44
So I appreciate those outreach efforts, but other than that, do we know of like any best practices that surrounding counties are implementing just because I I am worried about the workforce in terms of the demographics, the fact that our African-American community numbers have stayed relatively low as well as the API community and um it's not in a line with our county demographics.
28:10
So other than these outreach efforts, is there anything else we could be doing to explore?
28:16
Um, and I don't know the answer.
28:17
I don't know if other counties are having similar challenges us, or if they are doing well, but if you could speak to that.
28:24
Yeah, in fact, in fact, we I would say we're doing better than most of the other counties.
28:30
Uh, because we have as I indicated earlier, uh, you know, several entities participating.
28:37
East Bay Mud, the park districts, City of Oakland, City of San Leandro, so various uh opportunities are being shared, being shared during these Bob breakfasts, and participants are coming in uh from all of the places.
28:51
Uh and you know, I'll be honest with you, I think there's a certain demographic factor at play here that does not explain some of the uh the the differences between the demographics of the county versus uh what's going on in the construction industry.
29:08
But when you look at industry-wide, there's a clear pattern that seems to kind of simulate what we are seeing here.
29:14
That is uh that is uh the Hispanic community seems to be disproportionately uh present in in the construction industry.
29:23
Uh and and uh that distribution remained the same.
29:27
So the the one area, like I said, that we could not explain was the other category that uh you know we don't know who these individuals are.
29:38
Uh it could be any one of these uh uh demographic groups within the county that prefer to be uh anonymous or stay at the other category.
29:49
So uh if there's a way to kind of figure that out, maybe we can understand a better distribution of uh uh the demographic versus uh the workforce uh in the co in the construction industry.
30:05
Thanks uh, Marquez.
30:07
Yeah, because I had some similar uh questions as well.
30:10
So let me just um go over them.
30:13
But first of all, uh I'm trying to recall uh with some of your reports in the past.
30:19
Didn't we see dollar amounts?
30:23
Yes, I would say dollar amounts here.
30:26
Yeah, because the the in the past we we focused on the dollar amount, and yet the dollar amounts were, you know, these projects, some of the projects that I'm presenting to you are still ongoing.
30:38
So there's a it's a moving it's a moving target in terms of trying to use the dollar amount in terms of how much uh because it's it it could be subject to the timing of the construction itself, but the percent hours gives you a better picture of uh the degree of participation.
30:58
But with the dollar amounts, these contracts have been awarded, so there's X amount of dollars awarded to different contracts.
31:05
Oh, we have the seven months, yeah.
31:08
This covers the seven month period too.
31:10
Yes, yes, we have we have the dollar values, as you know.
31:13
They are they're all available from the board the board letters that we've used.
31:18
But what I'm saying is the the that tells you how more the value of the project, but uh the project moves over time, it does not tell you what the participation rate would be by each category other than the hours presented.
31:37
Okay, because I'm a little just a little uncomfortable not seeing the dollar amounts here and the we could just associate with the we can add them rounds.
31:46
We can add them next time.
31:47
I think there's no there's no problem.
31:48
So each one of those projects in that table has been in front of the board with a specific dollar value.
31:54
So we can add the dollar values there if you want.
31:58
Yeah, that'd be good.
31:59
And yeah, because I'm I know the both of us, Supervisor Marquez and I are quite familiar with the fact that these items have to come to the board for approval, but it would be good to see the dollar amounts.
32:12
So that's one observation.
32:15
The second observation is first of all, I do appreciate the five-year kind of um uh trends uh because I haven't seen that in the past, uh, even though I intuitively I know of some of the trends.
32:29
So first of all, let me just ask the question.
32:32
Um, under work the workforce report, you mentioned that the local apprentices accounted for 4,595.5 hours, which is 5.57%, a positive indicator.
32:49
Could could you explain why that's a positive indicator?
32:52
Because I know Supervisor Marquez was asking for if we have any um goals or benchmarks we're looking for, and I was trying to figure out uh why that was considered a positive indicator.
33:05
So and looking backwards, I think we were averaging about two and a half to two three percent uh of participation in terms of local apprenticeship.
33:15
So this one almost jumped up to five and a half, so uh that to me indicates that there is a there's uh some effort in the apprenticeship area that indicates higher degree of participation.
33:29
Uh so uh that's why I said it's a positive indicator rather uh uh because it's uh it kind of shows a three percent or two and a half percent increase.
33:41
Okay, all right, and then uh Supervisor Marquez asked the question do we have any goals that we're trying to um benchmark towards?
33:51
Not just around apprentice, not just around apprentice, but around local hires, around the minority, uh around any of this.
34:00
Are we have uh goals that we're looking to achieve?
34:03
Not not goals, but you know, the PSCBA stuff is coming in, as you know, with all their those requirements.
34:12
All of all of our projects now fall under the PSCBA, unless they are less than a million dollars in value.
34:19
So those numbers will be presented by GSA when they come, because we have a consultant that actually captured that information, as you know, Mr.
34:28
Sloan, uh is doing that.
34:30
So you'll get that information when GSA presents them from the public works point of view.
34:36
We in our specification put in a requirement uh of having apprenticeship uh ratio between uh between uh the journey level employment and apprenticeship, some relationship.
34:50
It slips me right now in terms of the sp the specification language, but but it's not uh it's not a disqualifying goal or something like that.
34:59
So it's uh something that we encourage.
35:02
We we we let the contractors uh know that's needs to happen, but through the PSCBA, they're required to meet some of that requirement.
35:14
Okay, so public works is basically dealing with horizontal construction, vertical construction.
35:21
So uh any benchmarks and goals you have are contained in the project stabilization report from GSA.
35:31
Okay, um, and then I know we have seen this has been a historical trend that there's a lot more Hispanic and Latinos uh in the workforce, and um I don't you know we've struggled with this over time.
35:46
I know one thing I think I want to try to uh further pursue.
35:52
Um there was a program with the acronym called RAMP or AMP, and I can't remember what the acronym stands for, but I know when folks were talking to me about RAMP, they were saying a lot of times that um for instance African Americans would go through the training and the apprentice and stuff, but then when they got on the job, uh they weren't being retained um for different reasons.
36:21
They would lose um their employment.
36:25
And I think the RAMP program was looking at how once African Americans were gone through the you know the training, the apprentice, how we could keep them employed.
36:37
And I just need to go back in time over the last year or two and refresh my memory with the folks that were looking at the RAM program and see uh whatever came of that, because I know Supervisor Carson was helping to provide some funding there, and I think I did as well.
36:53
So I'm gonna look at that.
36:55
And then another thing that has recently come to my attention is NAMAC, the National Association of Minority Contractors.
37:03
NAMAC primarily, I mean, it works with all contractors, whatever ethnicity, gender, etc.
37:10
Uh, but uh a primary bulk um concentration of their uh services are with African Americans.
37:18
And I know and talking with folks from NAMAC recently, I didn't realize Namac was an all-volunteer organization.
37:26
So I know they're looking to see if they can get support from the county so they can become not just a policy organization, but more of a an ongoing organization where they concentrate on their ability to work with um minority uh the minority workforce.
37:42
Um and so uh and like I said, the primary uh component of that or significant component of that would be African Americans.
37:49
So I'll be talking to uh GSA further about that, but I appreciate Supervisor Marquez raising it because it has been something we struggle with over time to try to figure out how we can get more um ethnic groups involved in the workforce and through the labor component, um, of which we haven't seen any subdemon change, but maybe through RAM, maybe through NAMEC, if we are able to go forward, um, that might give us um some um increases uh down the road.
38:24
Um then I I was also interested in um what you pointed out um Daniel the the local the local workforce local hiring is at 27 percent and that's why I was trying to get a sense of the contract out uh the contract values uh so if the local aspect of the contract values is 27 percent, so most uh um 73% if my arithmetic's correct is going out to non-local.
39:05
So uh what can we do to try to get because even if we don't have that minority um uh let's say disbursement of labor, if we can get more labor from the local Alameda County, that might also increase our our minority participation.
39:28
Yeah, uh that that's a good point.
39:30
Uh the the challenge, as you know, is beyond just construction industry, you have a very expensive uh region uh to live in.
39:42
Uh so uh a lot of these construction laborers are not high-end payment paying jobs, so uh so people are forced to kind of migrate up in the out in the outer regions to to to afford housing and various things like that.
40:00
So it is a complicated issue, but we're making every effort on our end uh to inform uh residents and businesses uh the opportunity that exists.
40:12
So while we have no direct influence on who they hire, uh they most businesses would appreciate if they were the capacity locally to hire locally because it's uh you know uh they're readily available, they can come into work uh in a timely manner, there's no commute issues.
40:33
So these are various similar issues that we face in our maintenance and operation environment, for example, that that if we can get somebody locally, you're more likely to have someone who is more committed uh to the area.
40:45
So uh the challenge uh seems to go beyond just individual construction activities uh into the broader economic factors that shape the decision uh by people where they live.
40:59
And when you take public works, the other thing you have to kind of keep in mind is a substantial portion of the work is for material.
41:07
The cost of doing business is for material rather than labor.
41:11
So one of the reasons that you know when you talk to GSA, when they do vertical construction, there's a lot more trade related work associated with that, you know, plumbing, uh, electrical, mechanical, all those things.
41:25
You cut when you come to public works, you're very limited to the degree of the diversity of trade work that's available.
41:32
So uh you have a very limited narrow scope uh uh of uh flexibility in terms of offering options uh to uh allow more residents.
41:42
So so uh but the primary factor in my judgment is I think is uh is uh the larger economic factor of affordability.
41:51
Okay, well, I thank you um for flagging that, and I and I think the two of us will also continue to be concerned about local hires, and you and you're right.
42:02
I think it's more costly to live obviously in Alameda County than some of the outlining counties.
42:07
Once again, it gets to housing, not having not having enough affordable housing.
42:11
I know Sorris Marquez is a big proponent of tenant protections.
42:15
Um some of these workers uh might be uh tenants as opposed to uh property owners and landlords.
42:21
I know uh also I've heard from labor that even um some of their workers are um afraid to live in Alameda County uh because of the criminal activity that might take place in certain jurisdictions and on certain work uh job sites.
42:40
So that's another uh issue as well.
42:42
Uh crime the criminality, um, and I know uh we just heard something from the California Supreme Court where they're gonna be more lenient on allowing people to uh uh not have to post bail.
42:55
Uh so that's gonna uh be a factor.
42:58
So I do think there's there's concerns here, but um appreciate you flagging that.
43:04
And then I then the last couple of questions I have is around the other.
43:08
So we don't know what's in that category of other, we just have no idea.
43:14
Uh uh, so I'm I'm gonna look into uh a little bit more if I can, but I'm not sure we can get anything from the data itself, but I'm more curious as to what happened uh sometime down at uh in uh in uh 20, I think I would say 2023 is when it starts shooting for you know substantially up and then flattened out after uh after 2024.
43:41
So so generally speaking, statistically speaking, usually when you when something goes up, something else must go down if you if you're uh uh but I don't see that happening.
43:51
So I'm almost thinking maybe there is an error in the data or or something, but but uh but generally speaking, I would you know it it needs to add up to some 100%.
44:03
And when something goes up substantially, uh without affecting the other part of the workforce.
44:09
Uh that kind of begs the question of accuracy.
44:11
So we'll but we'll we'll look into it a little more detail.
44:15
And as if uh Marquez like that as well, because um, you know, 2021 is 11%, and then 2022 is 19%, then 2023 25%, then 2024 is 49%.
44:29
Yes, 2025 it's 40%, and this year so far it's 44%.
44:33
But you look at the other other columns, African American, Asian, Caucasian and Hispanic, it's you know it's pretty consistent.
44:42
So you you're right.
44:43
So what's going on there?
44:46
So we're gonna, we're gonna I'm gonna try to look into it, uh no guarantee whether we find something or not, but uh uh but what I'm what I'm told is these are individuals who do not want to identify their ethnic identity.
45:02
Then finally, I also want to thank you for the bond.
45:06
I mean, particularly including the other jurisdictions, because you know that's something that I've you've known me for a long time.
45:12
It's something that I've really value, reciprocal um certification, you know, the ability for contractors and then um laborers and folks to um to work with all our public sector jurisdictions in the county where they could potentially receive opportunities.
45:29
So the fact that your Bob breakfasts are now including BART, the Port of Oakland, GSA, Alameda County Transportation Commission, Housing Authority.
45:41
It's some, you know, the cities of Oakland and San Leandro.
45:45
I just think that's really really good.
45:49
So yeah, I really, really value that.
45:52
So that's just want to also express my acknowledgement and appreciation around that.
45:58
And otherwise, yeah, it's an interesting report today, but just give us those values of those contracts in the future.
46:06
So let's no problem at all.
46:08
We'll we'll do that.
46:10
Do we have any public speakers on this item?
46:14
There are no public speakers on this item.
46:17
So if no public speakers on this item, I appreciate we'll see.
46:21
Uh do we have any public speakers on non-agendized items today?
46:28
There are no speakers for non-agendized items.
46:32
Um usually we have a working group meeting between our regular meetings where I work with the staff on the agenda.
46:40
Uh, but I just want to make sure that the staff uh is aware that you know, Supervisor Marquez at one of our board meetings wants us to look at the standard service agreement.
46:53
So we I want us to flag that and bring that to a uh pro and con meeting in the future to talk about the background around the standard service agreement, the purpose, uh the process, everything associated with it, so we can have an informational report on that and see if there's any anything we want to do with that.
47:13
I appreciate you for flagging that.
47:15
Um my team and I are actually gonna have a meeting with GSA just to further kind of flesh that out and post that meeting, we will definitely circle back to your team so we can look at a timeline and when we could agendize that.
47:27
But we we are tracking that.
47:29
We want to have more information before uh we request a presentation, but it but um it is definitely on our long list of to-do lists.
47:37
So thank you for not forgetting.
47:41
See great minds think alike.
47:43
We didn't even talk.
47:46
All right, so though we don't have any public comment today, it not it's not a reflection on the uh lack of importance of this committee.
47:56
This is a very important committee, so I appreciate the prize Marquez working with me and the staff on this committee.
48:03
So we're adjourned.