CITY OF HOMER

CITY HALL                  

MEMORANDUM 08-86

To:                                  Mayor and Council
Through                          Walt Wrede, City Manager

From:                              Anne Marie Holen

Date:                               May 27, 2008

Subject:                          Climate Action Plan Implementation Contract

 

 


This morning a review committee comprised of myself, City Council member Francie Roberts, and interested citizens Bill Smith and Bob Burns met to discuss the three proposals submitted in response to the RFP for professional services to accomplish specific tasks related to implementation of the City of Homer Climate Action Plan. The total amount available for a contract is $40,000. An additional $5,000 is to be reserved for contingency. The total, $45,000, is available to the City through the Homer Foundation, which accepted the money on behalf of two private donors.

 

I am pleased to report that there was unanimous agreement on a recommendation to forward to the City Council. We recommend that the contract be awarded to Deerstone Consulting, an energy consult­ing firm based in Homer. The project leader would be Brian Hirsch, Ph.D., president of Deerstone. Additional team members would be Joel Cooper, David Mogar, and Marla McPherson. It should be noted that Joel Cooper is currently working under contract for the City of Homer to assist in develop­ment of an “employee sustainability handbook.”

 

The Deerstone proposal, including resumes of team members, is attached.

 

Each member of the proposal review team evaluated the proposals using a generic matrix scoring system with four criteria. Out of a total of 400 possible points (100 for each scorer), Deerstone received 349. The next highest was Cascadia Consulting Group of Seattle, Washington (339 points). The Center for Climate Strategies, based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was far behind with 273 points. Thus, most of the discussion concerned strengths and weaknesses of Deerstone vs. Cascadia. Factors favoring Deerstone include the following: 1) Deerstone’s proposal is for $40,000; Cascadia requested $44,990. 2) Deerstone’s cost is based on 834 hours of work; Cascadia’s price, although almost $5,000 more, is based on 544 hours of work. 3) All of the Deerstone team members live in Homer area and would be available for frequent face-to-face meetings as well as visits to City buildings and facilities. Cascadia, on the other hand, proposes only one visit to Homer for a kick-off meeting and walk-through of City facilities. There was agreement among proposal reviewers that this would almost certainly create more of a burden on City staff and volunteers who would be called on to make contacts, collect data, etc. in Homer.

 

For comparison purposes, I am attaching the Cascadia proposal in addition to the Deerstone proposal.

 

RECOMMENDATION: AWARD A CONTRACT FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES TO ACCOMPLISH SPECIFIC TASKS RELATED TO IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CITY OF HOMER CLIMATE ACTION PLAN TO DEERSTONE CONSULTING.  FISCAL NOTE: $40,000.