Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, March 15, 2011,
Item 13
Number in 13.
13.
consider and take appropriate action on interviews of respondents to request for services for Travis County redistricting services as follows: proposed questions to be provided to the respondents; and interview process format.
transportation and natura
>> good evening, judge, marvin brice, assistant purchasing assistant and I have agent cory who helped with this project.
we issued a redistricting for services of the county on December 1st, on January 7th.
we received six responses.
members of the evaluation team, which was made up of members of the tax assessors office, county clerk's office and intergovernmental relations -- and I thought -- was bereviewed it and as a result we shortlisted three firms for oral presentations, three firms were bicker staff, heat, delgado,acosto, training and professionals and rolando row yes, sir and ant set for next Tuesday and b what we are doing so is a set of questions developed by the team to be presented to the respondent.
we need to have the court review those questions and decide whether you want those issued to the respondents prior to the actual interview and then also to approve the interview format which entails a one hour presentation by each respondent, 15 minutes for their actual presentation and then 45 minutes for questions, answers and clarifications.
what we are looking at, in speaking with the judge I guess it is going to be in the afternoon, looking at interviews at 1:30, 2:40 and 3:30, so with every hour with ten minute intervals in between so we are proposing to the court today the questions we are requesting the court approve the questions and issuance, keep in mind that there are other questions you want to answer but staff has come up with this and then approval of proposed format.
>> a few questions, if the court decides to approve these questions and of course they are given to the -- to the applicant, what time line has been set forth to get responses from them to ensure that we have an opportunity to get this before we actually look at that?
I don't know if the -- I guess they have come directly with y'all -- but I want to make sure we have enough time to deal with it, accurately.
can you show me how the process would work per se.
>> typically what e will do is provide the questions, a heads up for the team so they don't come in blind.
this will be questions they are not aware of but this gives the them time to go back and tweak them.
they won't look at it ahead of them.
the responses will be in the interview process, these particular questions, and mindful that the court may have questions that you will ask as well which won't be provided in advance.
>> okay.
>> have -- you just mentioned some of the questions would not be provided to them in advance.
which ones?
>> I am saying if the court had questions and if you wanted to, we could include those as well but I think we did this about ten years ago, the last time we addressed this issue and staff developed questions and these questions are more specific to the responses we received, additional clarification type questions, so last year or ten years ago, rather, we provided them these questions or those questions back then and then the court had additional questions, which are --
>> and have these been provided to the respondents already?
>> no, ma'am, they have not.
that's one of the things we are asking now, for the court to approve the issuance of these.
>> they are not included in the electronic backup on the website but included in the hard copy.
>> yes, as a matter of fact, we owe debt of gratitude to sheryl acre, if we post these electronically they would be available to the public, so we said let's hold off on those and give hard copy to court members.
>> thank you.
>> did you discuss these questions with the three vendors?
>> I don't believe so, no, sir.
or did we?
there was some discussion with them regarding these but not a full disclosure of the questions.
>> okay.
here is one question I think we should ask which is do you have any contract with another vendor that might reduce your ability to provide redistricting services to Travis County.
I would ask all three that.
>> can you are repeat that question, please, judge.
>> do you have a contract with another entity that might reduce your ability to provide redistricting services to Travis County.
and I just thought that all of these are in the redistricting business, right?
>> yes, sir.
>> and it's a -- kind of a innocuous question but it is real important.
>> yes, sir, give an idea of the workload and what they are currently up against and what limitations they may have in providing quality services to the county as well.
good question.
>> we did ask them to provide information in their responses about current clients they already have because --
>> okay.
>> -- because different agencies -- entitiesarrange for their services at different times, so some have already selected their -- the firm that they are going to use and some have not.
>> well, if the answer is no, I am happy.
if the answer is yes, please explain that.
>> right.
>> [laughter]
>> so I took it, to send these questions to the vendors before the interview, so they will have advanced notice?
>> yes, sir.
>> now, what we normally do is is standard questions and I guess if we give them the questions in advance, those would be fairly standard, but if we sit there and think of additional questions, we go ahead and ask them.
>> yes, sir.
>> we kind of defer to each court member for that.
some of us have questions sometimes.
some of us don't.
>> right.
>> but the spontaneity I think helps us a little bit and plus it gives us an opportunity to get some responses elaborated.
>> yes.
it gives an opportunity to see how fast they think on their feet.
>> any other discussion?
>> judge, is it germane to this posting to take an item in executive session on this?
>> if we need legal advice on it, yes.
>> all right.
I have a couple of legal questions on it.
>> okay.
then we will hold off on this until after executive session which hopefully we will get to early this afternoon.
>> what about schedule b, is thinking there anything on that, so we can make an acon some of this right now, as far as the review -- the interview process?
>> there is no problem with me.
we have already scheduled it for that time.
>> we just haven't notified the firms yet.
>> so it actually needs to come before the court before notification?
>> if you agree item b, then we can begin notifying the firms of their times, what we would probably do is give the highest ranked firm the first selection is of three times and so on and so forth and move on.
>> I have no problem.
I would like to move approval for b.
>> second.
>> it is.
second by Commissioner Gomez.
discussion?
all those in favor?
this passes by unanimous vote.
we will take a into executive session when we have consultation with attorney, when we move into checksive session this executive session.
I move that we go into recess until 1:30.
>> second.
>> that passes by unanimous vote.
do we need call 13 back up?
>> yes, sir.
>> 13, matter involving Travis County request for redistricting services from a vendor.
>> yes, marvin bryce, assistance purchasing agent.
staff just needs direction as to whether it's okay to send those questions to the firms now, or should we not send them out?
that was never heard on how the court would like that handled.
>> I move we send the questions to the firms.
>> second?
discussion?
all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 15, 2011 6:21 PM
