REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Action on an Agreement with Arini Geographics, LLC to provide Enterprise GIS Consulting Services
Report
BACKGROUND
The City has made significant progress in recent years in consolidating departmental technology initiatives into an Enterprise Geographic Information System (GIS) program. All Departments benefit from this citywide capability. The City’s Enterprise GIS program improves decision making and service delivery by enabling staff to visualize, analyze, interpret, and understand data in order to reveal patterns, relationships, and trends. The need for continued investment in GIS is more important than ever to support municipal needs such as land use, infrastructure management, public safety, crime mapping, regional and community planning, traffic and economic development.
Currently, the City has an agreement with Arini Geographics for GIS consultant services that ends October 31, 2019. This agreement was originally awarded after a competitive selection process in July 2015 for a three-year term in an amount not-to-exceed $3,000,000 with an end date of August 30, 2018. This agreement was amended on July 17, 2018 to extend the termination date to June 30, 2019, with no additional funds added. The agreement was amended again on June 4, 2019 to extend the term to October 31, 2019 and modify the total not to exceed amount to $3,550,000. Extending the existing service agreement allowed for the completion of a new procurement process and for continued service support during any needed transition period.
DISCUSSION
Solicitation of Qualifications and Selection:
On April 24, 2019, the City of Santa Clara Information Technology Department (ITD) issued a Solicitation of Qualifications (SOQ) bid process to select a qualified Geographic Information Systems (GIS) consultant to coordinate, manage and process Enterprise GIS activities within the City. An announcement was posted on the City website for public notification via BidSync, the City’s e-procurement system. Seventy-five potential vendors viewed the SOQ and five submissions were received by the proposal deadline.
Evaluation:
Proposals were evaluated and scored independently by a three-member team against the criteria and weights published in the SOQ, shown below:
|
Description |
Weight |
|
Proposal responsiveness |
Pass/Fail |
|
Proposal Quality and Presentation |
60 |
|
Firm Qualifications |
20 |
|
Staff Qualifications |
10 |
|
Client List / References |
10 |
|
TOTAL |
100 |
Staff determined all proposals were responsive and met the initial pass/fail review of the stated minimum qualifications. The table below shows the score total for each proposal based on the team’s evaluation and independent scoring:
|
Company Name |
|
Score total |
|
Ardent Management Consulting, Inc. |
Arlington, VA |
324 |
|
Arini Geographics, LLC |
Atherton, CA |
506 |
|
Avineon, Inc. |
Mclean, VA |
312 |
|
DCSE, Inc. |
Laguna Hills, CA |
375 |
|
Lynx Technologies |
Capitola, CA |
411 |
While all responders met the minimal qualifications, the two lowest scoring bidders were eliminated based on poor proposal submissions including a lack of relevant experience in a municipal setting, offshore and offsite staffing models, and poor fit. The top three scoring proposers, Arini Geographics, Lynx Technologies, and DCSE had proposals that better met the City’s solicitation request. These three bidders were invited to make presentations on May 24, 2019 with a multi-departmental stakeholder panel to provide further demonstration of their GIS knowledge to ensure that the City’s requirements were best met. The panel included staff from Community Development, SVP, Public Works, Fire, Parks and Recreation, and IT Departments.
In individual meetings, proposers Arini Geographics, Lynx Technologies and DCSE were each asked to present their GIS services proposal to the panel. Each consultant was asked to present their company, their proposed project team, and show the panel a sample of applicable work products they had done to illustrate their relevance. The panel members then asked further questions and clarifications of the consultants.
The panel review noted that Arini demonstrated a broad understanding and experience range for the needs of all departments citywide. Arini presented a focus on the overall view of City data and analysis, as well as a strong ability to provide solutions and support to stakeholders. They presented strong business processes, systems integration and project delivery methodology. The panel review determined that while DCSE and Lynx demonstrated solid GIS project experience, their focus did not cover the breadth of municipal needs that the City requires. Both bidders had a contractor with subcontractor proposed model and it was difficult to understand how the multiple companies would split the contract to provide services to the City. One proposer did not illustrate any public safety experience nor history with power utility services. The panel felt that neither DCSE nor Lynx presented a strategic view of what the City was seeking in a GIS consultant and that their proposals had a task-based work model rather than a solution to move the City forward into new technologies and GIS analysis.
Award Recommendation:
Staff recommends the award of contract to Arini Geographics, LLC (Arini). The evaluation team found the proposal to be the most advantageous and to provide the best value to the City. The recommendation is to award a three-year professional services agreement in an amount not to exceed $3,500,000 for the initial term of the contract with the option of one additional two-year renewal term. As true with multi-year agreements, the annual budget is contingent upon future budget appropriations by the City Council.
Contract work plan
The annual projects and workplans will be reviewed and prioritized by the City through department stakeholder meetings and a review of available resources and funding. The proposed work plan initiatives to be targeted for fiscal year 2019-20 include:
1. Operational support and maintenance on the following:
• Produce citywide GIS layers - i.e. utility easements, building footprints, city neighborhoods, and geospatial imagery;
• Enhance citizen outreach and engagement - web map viewers, story maps, native mobile applications and open data geospatial portal;
• Assist public safety operations by maintaining up-to-date maps and master address dataset, along with specific law enforcement and firefighting GIS-based applications for crime analysis and operational dashboards;
• Common Operational Picture (COP) for real-time situational awareness for public safety for game day and special events;
• Empower field personnel through mobile GIS and integration with business applications - work order management.
2. Working with Departments to prioritize workplans, GIS-based projects may include:
• Citywide Permitting System - GIS implementation and integration of building and inspection permits, addresses and parcel changes, location information lifecycle;
• Public Works Asset Management - Street and traffic signs, City trees, ADA compliant ramps, traffic control, road and parking markings, urban forest;
• Parks Inventory - Parks trees, parks facilities, playground equipment;
• Analyze and streamline the meter information processes for utility meters, addressing, energy load balancing, pipeline hydraulic modeling, consumption analysis, emergency response;
• Vegetation management, vegetation-related incident mapping and analysis - highlighting trees that are interfering or at risk of interfering with power lines;
• Easements Inventory, Mapping and GIS Integration - inventory and mapping of all categories of easements and right of ways in the City.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The action being considered does not constitute a "project" within the meaning of a California Environmental Quality Act ("CEQA") pursuant to the CEQA Guidelines section 15378(a) as it has no potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment.
FISCAL IMPACT
The amount of the Agreement with Arini Geographics will not exceed $3,500,000 dollars over the initial three-year term of the contract. Funding for these services in FY 2019/20 is available in various budgets. For FY 2019/20, the planned project budget is $1,150,000 with the following identified sources of funding: $661,786 from the GIS Enterprise Systems capital project budget, $480,000 from the IT Services Fund, and $45,800 from the Stadium Operations budget. Funding for future fiscal years is subject to the annual appropriation of funds.
COORDINATION
This report has been coordinated with the Finance Department and the City Attorney's Office.
PUBLIC CONTACT
Public contact was made by posting the Council agenda on the City’s official-notice bulletin board outside City Hall Council Chambers. A complete agenda packet is available on the City’s website and in the City Clerk’s Office at least 72 hours prior to a Regular Meeting and 24 hours prior to a Special Meeting. A hard copy of any agenda report may be requested by contacting the City Clerk’s Office at (408) 615-2220, email clerk@santaclaraca.gov <mailto:clerk@santaclaraca.gov> or at the public information desk at any City of Santa Clara public library.
RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
1. Approve and authorize the City Manager to execute an Agreement for Enterprise GIS Consulting Services with Arini Geographics, LLC for an amount not-to-exceed $3,500,000 over a three-year term ending October 31, 2022, subject to additional budget appropriations by the City Council; and
2. Authorize the City Manager to execute a two-year option to extend the term of the Agreement after the three-year term through October 31, 2024 with compensation increases subject to the City Manager’s approval and budget appropriations.
Staff
Reviewed by: Gaurav Garg, Director/CIO, Information Technology Department
Approved by: Deanna J. Santana, City Manager
ATTACHMENTS
1. Agreement for GIS Consulting Services with Arini Geographics, LLC