Travis County Commissioners Court
December 13, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 3
Item number 3, receive briefing from purchasing agent on following: a, canadian public-private partnership p 3 conference, and b, contract negotiations for advisory team for feasibility analysis of ap 3 for new civil and family courthouse.
we may take b into executive session under consultation with attorney also.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, cyd grimes, Travis County purchasing agent.
with me is roger jeffries with criminal justice planning and belinda powell with our planning and budget office.
and roger, do you have that?
>> I do.
>> we have a power point I sent to you I believe yesterday afternoon just to go over with you.
and roger is going to try to turn the pages for us.
as you know, back in November I was invited to go to the canadian council for public and private partnerships.
it was their 19th annual conference on public-private partnerships.
canada has been doing p 3s for over 20 years and between them and australia are sort of considered the experts in public-private partnerships.
I believe I was invited because we have found out we are potentially doing a p 3 and in fact I need to thank h.d.r.
for probably submitting my name and helping me kind of meet people that I needed to meet.
if you'll go to the second slide, I just wanted to give you a brief background of what the canadian council is.
it was established in 1993 as a member sponsored organization with representative both to public and private sector.
and as you know, canada is much more socialized in a lot of the areas than we are.
I'm not going to try to explain the canadian government framework because I don't know what it is except they all report to the queen.
but this group of folks came together to promote innovative approaches to infrastructure.
canada is having the same type of issues that the united states is.
they have a very old infrastructure and they have an increasing population, and in their part of the world their infrastructure deteriorates much quicker than ours.
so this has been a way for them to try to deal with some of the issues that they had in trying to get things built quickly.
they understood that they couldn't do it alone, they needed the private sector.
we have that same situation here.
even when I contract every day for services, it really is with the private sector.
this is just a much more detailed model of that and as I go through I'll explain a little bit to you.
the council also promotes collaborative partnership between all the public partners and the industry.
they advocate for evidence based public policy in support of public-private partnerships.
probably some of the most useful information that I got while I was there is to understand where we could go to get some of the information that they've been doing for 20 years.
they have service contracts, they have contract performance measures already in place.
they have standard and procedures they've been refining and improving over the last 20 years.
so they were -- in fact, this guide which I get most of the information for my power point was hot off the presses when I got there and I actually forgot, like, my business card and had to beg them to give me a copy, but since I was a speaker they gave me a copy, but this has a lot of information that can be shared with everyone.
but this is a type of information that they've published that helps folks understand what a p3 process is.
>> use the guidelines for their p3s when they do them in canada?
>> yes.
and when I go to the next slide, I'll show you some of the owner representatives which are similar to us.
the third thing their mission was to facilitate the adoption of international best practices.
as I had mentioned, australia has also been doing p3s for many years and are sort of considered a model.
there are over 1500 people at this conference from all over the world, but mostly canada, the u.k., and some folks from australia.
and I was not the only one there with a funny accent so I fit right in.
their other mission is to educate stakeholders the community on the economic and social benefits of p3s.
it was very interesting, they had a mayor's panel.
they had some former mayors, richard daly from chicago was there.
they had a lady that was there from the calgary province of canada.
she reminded me of my great aunt dove, she had to have been in her 90s, a little bitty lady and she was feisty but she had mayor for 34 years.
it was interesting because she talked about in their providence they were so dependent on property taxes, which is so similar to us.
she talked about how the federal government should -- should fund down more money to the providences like we say they should push some of that money down to help the infrastructure.
the other interesting thing in canada is they do not consider infrastructure just what in my mind we consider road, bridges, dams. They also consider -- consider social infrastructure, things like hospitals, as you know they are very socialized in their hospitals, but also they have used p3s to develop opera houses.
they felt like the cultural infrastructure needed to be there for the community, not only the hard road and bridges type opportunities.
so that was interesting that they -- we normally don't think of infrastructure as social-type services.
they also saw p3s as economic development opportunities.
not only the initial construction but then the ongoing maintenance of those projects created ongoing jobs.
then if we go to the next slide, these were just some of the owner representatives organizations that are part of the canadian council and also were there and actually had individual meetings with.
these are all owners.
the p3 canada is sort of like the federal arm, and they actually do fund up to 25% of some of their approved infrastructure projects.
and so I thought that was interesting.
and then these other groups are just different -- like I think a providence is like a state.
so these were folks that I melt and the partners that run -- the gentleman I met from there, they were a branch of the department of transportation.
and they -- they reminded me of texans.
they were very friendly folks and they were all very nice and offered to help us in any way that we could.
it was interesting that both of the teams that we've been negotiating with, actually two from each team that would have been on our teams was there at the meeting along with a whole lot of other industry folks.
the next one is just sort of an executive summary of the p3 process.
I've come to court several times in the last course of the year talking about getting us moving forward, and so this is how they decide -- describe the process and explained when we are deciding on adopt as p3, which we are still very much just deciding, what we need to decide is who in the organization will be responsible for the project and what authority they have.
and that's in this case not be more than one individual, which it usually is on a project this large, but those are the kind of things that need to be decided.
we need to establish policies to guide our decision-making processes, your decision-making processes.
we need to identify how to develop or acquire the expertise necessary to plan and procure these service.
again, we're doing that.
we have some in-house expertise, but we know we're going to need outside expertise and we have been in that process.
and then we need to establish procedures to enable the delivery of services through a p3.
let me just an example with 700 lavaca.
we currently have a management agreement with sentinel who manages the leases in those buildings and who -- I mean we're starting to take that part over, but they also manage the maintenance of that building.
we have been working throughout this year s.m., the auditors, planning and budget, working with sentinel to figure how we work together and manage together.
that's the kind of procedures that we'll need to establish when we decide that we want someone to maintain and operate our courthouse down the road, which is one of the options.
so we have a lot to think about moving forward.
the next slide shows the three principal phases for p3.
the first is the planning, the pre-procurement phase.
then as I presented to you before, the next phase would be actual procurement where we go out and do request for qualifications, narrow it down to potentially three proposals neglecting and then close that, and then the third phase would be contract management.
as I stated previously, we are still in the pre-plan or the planning stages.
very much in the planning stages.
now, if you spoke to judge dietz, he would say we've been planning for -- he's been planning for a lot longer than us, but I can remember starting on this project at least five years ago.
so I think we are doing a very thorough job of thinking things through and making sure that we're doing all the things we need to do.
it's not -- it doesn't go as fast as we would like, but unfortunately that's our process.
we actually have hired some experts.
we did hire broaddus and associates over a year ago to do our master plan.
they brought the master plan to you I believe a couple weeks ago for the final report.
so we've got that done, which is critical.
before we decide on the courthouse itself.
we hired ugl equis to help broker our site purchase.
we also mid our vinson and elkins process to help with any legal services we might need, and we are currently negotiating with the top ranked firm that we're going through this process which I will believe you on in a minute to get someone to help us go to the next phase of this which is get with all of you, decide what your ideas are, educate all of you on the p3 concept and then -- a myriad of other things which I'll discuss further.
so we are still planning, although we have done some procurement, procurement of
>> [inaudible].
the next slide talks about the planning phase.
again the planning starts with identification of a need.
we did that several, several years ago.
the district judges have been telling us we need a new courthouse, we need a new court house.
a qualitative assessment to identify the options available to us to possess the potential of delivering a project through the p3.
are we just going to build a courthouse or have a private partner who is going to build something else on that.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> a big issue in public-private partnership is the transfer of risk.
that is how you get some value for money.
again, they will walk us through workshops to help explain all this.
also market capacity.
is there anyone interested.
the private sector interested.
>> mr. Reeferseed, you are very distracting?
>> I'm sorry.
would you please return to the audience and take your signs with you?
after we hear from county staff we will ask if there are residents who would like to address us.
>> sure.
>> and on market capacity we will need an expert to help us with that.
we did put out the request for information, received 21 responses.
those consisted of 20 teams, so we know we have some interest in this.
so again in the planning phase all these issues will be vetted out with all of you and the other stakeholders.
we also need to do a business case and a quantitative value for money analysis that compares p3 to our additional procurement.
one of the things we will do is value for money and what I've mentioned over time and validated through my discussions with the experts and canada is that this value for money right now is going to be based on some hypotheticals because we do not have a deal on the table.
we've talked about this before.
so the value for money analysis will be based on what we think we could do on our standard design, bid, build method and then they're going to bring options to us to decide on other ways that we might can do it.
and those will be based on hypothetical models.
and as we go through this process, when we actually -- if we do move forward with the p3 and we have specific proposals on the table.
, at that time we will need to do more detailed value money for analysis so that you're actually looking at actual numbers and not just hypothetical numbers.
they can use our standard design-build model and then they'll look at bringing two other options to the Commissioners' court to discuss and analyze.
the next page it talks about our business case.
the business case is just a document prepared to support the decision making describing the needs and the cost benefit and the financial and other impacts the project may have.
in our contract, we define -- there's a definition, the study, and the study is basically the business case and this is a comparison.
it will define exactly what we'll be doing.
the goal of a p3 is to deliver the project on time and on budget and to provide real cost savings to the public sector.
through our business case a value for money, we'll be doing detailed financial and risk analysis to summarize the project objectives and scopes.
validate a short list of procurement options.
are we going to do a construction manage of course, manage build finance operate or maintain?
there's a wide spectrum of options that we could do.
we're going to walk through those and see which one is best for us.
also the market interest.
this contractor will be looking at the 21 rr 5's that we received and do a summary of those and present that to the Commissioners' court.
and then you get to decide how we're going to move forward.
so the ultimate goal of a business case and determine a procurement method for a p3 is will the private sector involvement give us more value for money?
and some of the qualitative issues are a little bit more harder to measure.
so this is where the experts will come in and help us walk through because we've talked about having retail space.
is that really a value?
those things -- those type things.
so the lessons learned on the next slide was as always communicate, communicate, communicate.
we cannot communicate enough with each other and among our stakeholders.
we need to understand the regulatory and policy frameworks.
our county attorneys have been analyzing some of the house bills and senate bills that were passed.
house bill 628 and house bill 1048, to look to see what authority it gives us.
so we think we are -- we think we have the authority to do some of this, but that will be something that will be checked in this process.
develop internal alternate procurement policy.
we have pretty much standard procurement policies and they'll just have to be adapted to this process.
we need to educate the decision makers.
that's all of you and all of the other stakeholders on what a p3 is, what it really means to us.
we need to build our in-house expert, which I believe all of us have been trying to do for the last year or longer when the word p3 came out.
I'm still trying to find out who came up with that idea.
>> [ laughter ] I won't call him out.
then we need to engage our external advisors, which are in the process.
we need to show value for money.
we need to understand the private sector interest and then real and effective risk transfer.
then we need have patience.
I know judge dietz and some of the others patience is running thin and I know ours is running thin.
and the importance of team continuity.
you've developed a courthouse internal team.
we've had some people come and go, so we might want to relook at that internal team.
you may want to further define that team as we move through this process.
and then as we all know, this needs to be very open and transparent process, which is part of my responsibility as your purchasing agent to make sure that happens.
and then on the next page there were four key success factors that I heard during the course of the cram packed two-day in all my meetings.
we must have a champion at the highest level of government who supports this process.
I'm hoping we have all five of you as champions.
and we know judge dietz has been a champion.
and some of the other judges.
so hopefully we can have a bunch of champions for this project because it will be a big project and a critical project.
again, we need to have defined and thought out policies and procedures, and I think as painful and slow as it seems to be, we're doing that, we're taking our time and trying to educate ourselves.
we must be legally able to do the p3's.
we think we are, but we have to define that.
and then again, communicate, communicate, communicate with all of our stakeholders.
so that's just a brief report on my trip.
it was very fruitful.
and it was well worth the $280 that I think you spent to send me there.
the council picked up the other money.
and I really appreciate that, so it was money well spent.
so I have -- I'll answer any questions that I can, but we have a lot of contacts now if we move forward with the p3.
>> is there any way possible that -- you mentioned a couple of folks that have really been involved and kind of got a success track record.
you mentioned the folks at the county, but you also mentioned someone in australia, I believe.
>> well, there were just a lot of folks.
there were 1500 mostly men there --
>> mostly men?
>> mostly men with bald heads for some reason.
I guess it's an architect thing now.
but there were 1500 people there from all over.
I mean, I met the -- I think I met the minister of france.
I mean, there was a lot of really -- as my daddy would say, I felt like I was really important.
there were a lot of high hitters there.
these are the people that have been doing this for a long time.
>> right, right.
>> I have a lot of business cards from a lot of people.
>> and the reason why I asked that question is we felt that we need to maybe venture into some of those expertise persons that you've met, we would like to maybe do that.
>> yes.
>> I think what we're trying to do here is come up with the best product that we can possibly get seeing that you have been exposed to a lot of these things.
I think we need maybe similar exposure, not to the extent that you may have had it, but at least on that version of communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate.
I think that is really the crux of a lot of this.
so I would like to -- like to yield to some of those folks -- you mentioned france, australia and folks all over the world that -- where we can come up with a real good product.
>> they were all very offering of help.
I got several lawyers' names.
they were all very -- they've already established the contracts and performance measures and service agreements.
>> right.
>> they've done this.
>> it's very informative.
thank you.
>> thank you, Commissioner.
>> Commissioner Eckhardt?
>> we were just recently at the conference of urban counties where there was also a breakout session on public-private partnerships that was sponsored by the national council for public-private partnerships.
and y'all may already know this, but I thought that we would put it out there too since a couple of us were there.
there is a conference in Austin being held by the national council for public-private partnerships on January 25th.
and they have extended an invitation to all elected officials and government employees for free, to attend for free.
>> that's good.
>> that would be an interesting session as well, and some of the questions they were raising were things that we need to keep up with.
and one of the things they kept saying is the public partner is going to be very much interested in getting what they need out of this.
and that's profit.
and so we need to really think about that as we go into all this.
and then the other thing that I kept hearing over and over was if you are -- if you have bad credit rating or if you're short of money or can't borrow money, then the p3 is the way to go.
certainly that does not fit us at all.
so that's another thing that we need to keep in mind.
and I intend to go to this conference in January because obviously there's just a lot to learn.
>> right.
>> are you speaking at the conference?
>> I haven't been invited yet, judge.
no.
>> so in canada they use the p3 to fund a lot of projects?
>> yes.
they have four courthouse -- what they call the pipeline right now, what was interesting.
we know about roads and bridges, we know about the traditional things where there's a revenue stream, but they are actually doing courthouses.
there's one in calgary that they combined the supreme court, the provisional.
they had a huge courthouse?
>> are there materials available that deal with the schoolhouses?
>> yes.
>> did you establish good enough relationship to get five more copies of that book that you showed us?
>> [ laughter ]
>> I can pay for 'em if I can't, but I can get copies of them for you.
>> if they -- if you think they will be helpful.
>> I think it is.
I mean, it was --
>> the other issue that we were confronted with after we acquired the tract of land was that some residents believed that we ought to try to develop a project that has activity after five or six in the evening when courthouses typically close.
and so was that an issue?
>> well, I mean, it's just something that we have to decide on.
it's a decision for y'all to make.
I mean, looking at what else is around there that provides that function.
I mean, we know parking is going to be an issue for us, but it's going to be -- it's just dependent on what the market will bear and what the experts think we can put there.
it's really going to be up to y'all.
>> do they -- did they define this value for money?
I have my ideas, but is there like a definition that is used?
>> no.
what I like about this is it's in laymen terms for people like me.
so there are basic definitions.
to me value for money, judge, when I first heard this, to me this is the same as a cost benefit analysis and trying to capture all of the costs.
but let me read what it says.
a key component in the development of the business case is the value for money analysis.
a value for money analysis is a process of developing and comparing total project costs measured at the same point in time under the following delivery methods.
a traditional method, which I talked about we're going to compare against what it would cost us -- what we estimate it would cost us to build the building.
that says the traditional procurement, the estimated total cost to the public sector of delivering the project also they call that the public sector compareter.
and we compare that against alternative comparative measure.
delivering the project to the exact same specs using an alternative procurement model.
and then the value for money exists when the risk for cost for the adjusted cost.
so what we'll be doing in our contract, what we have asked for is to use the public sector compareter design, build, build, what used to be our traditional method, and then two other options.
and y'all get to decide.
they'll say here's all the different options.
which ones do you want to pick and which ones do you want us to analyze.
the team has felt maybe a construction manager risk, which is not a full blown design build, and then one of the full blown design-bid-operate- maint design-bid-operate-maint ain.
the finance will be an issue.
we know we can get financing probably cheaper.
so those -- there's a component that where we would finance our part, they would finance their part.
so there's just a lot of thought that is need to go into the different options that you all have.
and thus our need to hire an expert to help us walk through this and understand all of it.
>> what you've covered has been 3-a, basically the da made an public private partnership conference and general public-private partnership ideas.
>> yes.
>> anybody here on a that would like to give comments?
mr. Reeferseed?
>> just briefly I wanted to ask what is p3?
I don't know that term.
everybody is talking about.
it's a code word for something.
>> this is my copy.
it's a public private partnership.
>> that's the whole thing you went to.
that's what they call it.
and it was really exciting this trip to canada and the -- oh, thanks.
the trip to canada observation for me about that was that the state sponsored just -- I don't mean to disagree with you.
you're my favorite person here, but the state supported fine arts in canada is not a good example of money well spent.
the fact that leaving the arts in the private sector is obviously superior.
for example, broadway, there would be no broadway if we didn't have the private financing money and people who invest -- and there's no broadway in canada.
so that was just a brief --
>> they have (indiscernible) in canada.
>> right.
in general, but no, we don't need analysts, costly consultants.
I don't think that's a thing to be proud of.
it's not a victory on our part, all this money we wasted on that.
we need to listen to the taxpayers and make common sense decisions and show leadership and stop wasting money on whimsical projects.
and budget champions, that translated to me the budget czars and and that's bad news, we don't need czars making decisions and authority.
thanks.
>> thanks.
3-b?
>> yes.
3-b, I will give you a briefing of where we are in our process for hiring an advisory team for the feasibility analysis.
as you know, we issued -- this time last year we were closing on the city block.
then in April the court recommended we issue a request for information to see if there was interest.
we got back 21 responses composed of up to three to five teams -- per team, so that's about 84 teams that are interested in our project.
then in may, you authorized me owe on at the end of ma you authorized me to issue a request for services, and we received 10 responses in response to that request for services.
we opened those in the middle of July.
the evaluation committee was comprised of six departments, the auditors office, the county attorney's office, planning and budget, purchasing, transportation, natural resources and facilities management.
the court had prior to me establishing the valuation committee appointed our internal courthouse team.
and so what I decided to do was since that group had been meeting and discussing as, say, like the auditor she had herself and two other employees, but only one of them got to score.
pbo had three folks.
rodney at the time recused himself because his wife was working for one of the teams. So belinda and deanna were a team and they voted.
and then leroy came in after rodney had left and was involved towards the end.
so from that evaluation committee we had six votes from those six departments.
and so from the 10 responses that we received, we did written scorings and we narrowed those down to the four highest ranked firms. They were curb man (indiscernible), ernst & young, joan language la salle americas and kp and g corporate finance.
after we selected those top four we invited those four teams to come in and do oral interviews and get clarification on our -- on what we wanted and get an understanding.
as you know, we've never done this before, so we didn't know exactly what to ask for.
so there was a lot of back and forth discussions that needed to happen to get a feel for the team.
so after the oral interviews, we narrowed it down to the two top firms, which both, by the way, were accounting firms. Ernst & young and kp and g.
we continued to have meetings with those two firms to get more clarifications and then we took a final vote after all of our meetings and follow-up discussions, we took a final vote and the final vote was 4-2 for ernst & young.
so the committee, we moved forward a smaller group.
it's really hard to have that many people in negotiations, so myself, mr. Hille, 10ly, aldridge, our project executive and our project manager, belinda and roger were in the negotiations.
and we've been negotiating really hard and there are a few issues.
I don't think any of them are deal breakers, but the county attorney's want to discuss with you in executive session.
so we are in the process now and the team -- I sent you the -- last Friday the definitions and the tasks, the detailed tasks.
basically they're going to review and report on the rfi's.
and there's a whole breadth of information that they'll be looking at.
they'll meet with all of you.
they're going to meet with the public.
they're going to meet with the other stakeholders, district judges, and they're going to meet with the internal team to come up with our study management plan.
so they're going to do the value for money analysis.
they are going to develop our concepts and objectives.
they're going to hold a risk management workshop to explain a lot of this complicated stuff.
they're going to do a real estate market analysis.
and they are going to present final reports to the Commissioners' court.
and I probably left out a few things, but they're going to be looking at working with all of you to decide whether we want to move forward or not with a -- with the p3 project.
I know that several of you got -- I know all of you got an email from the auditor and leroy nellis in planning and budget about the votes.
and we met yesterday as a committee.
there was a short -- it was a smaller group.
not everyone could be there.
and actually, susan had to leave early, but we discussed some of the issues and we think they're all -- some of them have already been negotiated and have been covered, so we feel like that all of her concerns and leroy's concerns have been addressed in the negotiations.
one of the sticklers has been the legal.
both accounting firms said that they could not, because of their code of ethics or canons, whatever, that they could not give legal advice.
and it was very difficult for them to subcontract with a law firm.
so this is an issue from day one and we've been going back and forth and the attorneys have agreed that because some of the options now we think we might be able to do if we need that legal review on an option that we're not sure of, that we can turn on a contract which is a separate contract if we need that level of work.
and that amount is not to exceed $50,000.
and again, we also have our other attorneys in-house and ve and another one, I believe, who could help us.
so the legal review got sort of -- because of their inability to contract directly.
so I believe the attorneys will talk a little bit about that in executive session.
both of these teams were excellent.
they both stood out.
they were neck and neck the whole time.
we had a really hard time deciding.
I sort of took a poll yesterday, you know, from some of the folks because the scores -- in some instances the scores were higher on kp and g, but in the final vote I think it got down to -- we thought that either team could do the work, but we felt like that e and y would be able -- better able to communicate and understood our needs.
so that's the decision that we've made.
of course, it's up to the Commissioners' court to make the final tough decision.
so I'm here along with the rest of the team.
I think there's other team members here.
I see the auditor here.
if y'all have any questions.
and then the attorneys want to discuss some stuff in executive session.
>> let me make sure I understand what, if anything, you are asking the court to do today.
what are you asking the court to do today?
>> I know that the court likes to think about things, and I know this is a very big contract and it's a very big project and I know that y'all need to think about the contract.
so I wanted to get all the information to you, ask any questions that you needed.
we wanted to brief you.
today is just a briefing.
I intend -- I spoke with e and y yesterday.
I think they're ready to sign the agreement as the attorneys have drafted it, so I think we're ready to have you approve it next Tuesday.
>> when do you plan to share that draft agreement with the court?
>> well, you've got the definitions and you've got the scope of work.
I sent that to you Friday.
>> when will we have a legal document?
>> the legal document is hawkins and delafield.
>> it's ready.
we can give it to you today.
>> we'll certainly have it to you, you know, for next week's agenda, but I've given you the guts of it.
>> is it two pages or 200?
>> it's considerably longer.
>> [ laughter ]
>> we need more than a weekend to review this.
>> that would be great.
just send over the draft contract.
>> I can give it to you as soon as we get out of here for the day.
>> yeah, this is the contract.
for some reason we still haven't gotten numbered, but this is it.
and a lot of it is our standard contracting information, but you've got the scope of work and the definitions.
>> any comments from any other committee members?
>> I'd like to hear -- judge, I don't think we can just gloss over the minority report.
I think leroy is out today due to a death in the family.
but I still would like to hear something about it.
>> yeah.
I mean, I stayed an hour and a half at the meeting yesterday and we did not discuss the minority report when I was there.
>> no.
she left before we addressed it.
>> that's while I was there.
I think we laid out what our concerns are.
and basically what we wanted you to do is just know what our thinking was, plan it in your thinking so that two months down the road you didn't say well, gee, we wish you would have told us this.
it's simply a statement of what the two major financial offices think.
>> okay.
>> and there's more detail -- and we don't want to send a bunch of detail, but in our office every bit of analysis diana did and submitted written copies to the committee.
I didn't put that in there because it's voluminous.
but if you want information, you just need to ask.
>> do you feel that the process was unfair?
or that it's just reasonable minds differing?
>> I don't think that the process worked well, no, I don't.
>> the question --
>> no, I don't think it was fair.
>> you don't think it was fair?
>> no.
I didn't think it was.
we changed the scope mid --
>> so john and jim, fairness of process sounds a little legal to me.
>> are you asking us that same question --
>> no, I'm asking you if we can take that issue into executive session?
>> absolutely.
>> under consultation with attorney.
>> well, I would like it discussed in open court.
if she's implying that the process was fair under my supervision, I want the public to understand that I disagree with her opinion.
and if we have to talk about it in executive session and come out and discuss in open court, I'm fine with that.
>> I think we ought to discuss it in executive session with legal counsel first.
we don't know --
>> [ laughter ] any objection to that?
I mean, I think -- I think it sounds serious enough for us to get legal advice on it.
>> and that's why I asked because as we saw last night at campo, I lost big time at campo last night.
and I think the decision --
>> (indiscernible).
>> [ laughter ]
>> and I think the decision was wrong, but the process was fair.
reasonable minds differed.
and therefore I suck it up and move on.
so that's the reason why I ask.
is it that reasonable minds differed or do you think that there was unfairness in the process?
and your response is there's unfairness in the process, so I would agree with legal that if that is the charge, a rather serious one, and we'll take it up in executive session.
>> well, here is a scheduling reality.
I think we only have four members -- four court members present next Tuesday, which is the 20th.
the Tuesday after that is a couple of days after christmas.
so we may be looking at the south first Tuesday of January -- the first Tuesday of January.
now, that sort of extends it more than I wanted to, at the same time, though, it gives us ample opportunity to review everything that we need to review.
court members, I guess we can think about that the rest of the day, but at some point we ought to indicate when we plan to take action on it.
>> that obviously is your prerogative, judge.
the work schedule was for them to start in January and just -- January.
it was a 10-weaken gauge.
so just realize it will push us out past our starting date of March.
so just fyi.
>> any other comments from any of the committee members?
any comments from any member of the public?
let's indicate our intention to call this item up in executive session under the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act.
>> who are the members of the negotiating team?
>> myself, belinda, roger jeffreys and john and tenley.
>> too fast.
>> myself, belinda, roger jeffreys, john hille and tenley.
>> I got five names, right?
>> we were the small negotiating group.
>> okay.
>> and then jorge from my office too.
he was there with us.
>> and oh does the financial evaluation?
>> well, the whole committee -- the six groups evaluated the proposals, which included their expertise and experience in doing financial analysis, p3 assessments.
all that was in the written process scoring.
>> but it's not necessary to have a financial person on the negotiation team?
>> no.
>> we wrote the scope -- we wrote the scope with the bigger group.
so when we went into negotiation, the scope had been reviewed by the larger group.
>> right.
we made -- there was some definitions to fitness for purpose, all those things.
we passed through the larger group before we negotiated.
>> it still doesn't make any sense to me.
not to have someone with financial background on the negotiation team.
>> well, belinda is in the planning and budget office.
>> but she's not the pbo person.
>> well, we weren't -- I'm confused on why you're confused.
>> I'm confused because the --
>> the financial pieces in the scope of work -- there was nothing to negotiate.
all we're negotiating is the legal terms and the cost at that point.
the scope of work was decided by the entire internal committee.
so there was nothing else to negotiate.
they're going to be doing the financial, they're going to do the value for money.
I mean, the scope was written and they agreed to it.
so there was not a reason to have a financial person in the office -- I mean in the negotiations.
>> if you're negotiating costs, isn't that financial?
>> yes, but that's usually the purchasing area, and the pricing was fairly close all the way through.
purchasing usually -- usually it's the purchasing office that takes the lead on negotiating the cost.
>> so we're not negotiating, you know, value for money methodologies.
we're just negotiating the cost.
>> [overlapping speakers]
>> and the contract to evaluate what information there is to make a decision about which way we're going to go.
>> this is a real big deal and of course we want to make sure that we are placed in a position where we're able to make the right decision.
and I guess there are a few things laid out there that I will have to hear from legal.
I've heard many different points of view.
and thank you very much, cid, for the presentation you've given us.
I think it's very, very thorough and I think you've done a real good job; however, there is a few little twitches and things that I think we need to hear from legal.
and I'm -- I just can't hardly wait to hear those things.
since we have the full court here today, we could maybe look at those things and see what --
>> oh, I absolutely want them addressed.
I'm with you, Commissioner Davis.
>> yes.
I -- we need to hear them, there's no doubt about it.
so I'm looking forward to that discussion.
so that's about all I have to say at this point.
thank you.
>> we'll take 3-b into executive session when we convene in there for this item and the others.
thank you.
>> do you want to get 8 out of the way?
do you want to get 8 done?
>> no, ma'am.
we have six or seven people that I promised we would call up at 10 and then I said 10:15 and we missed both of them.
do we have four on the consent motion?
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