Empowerment
Pardon Our Dust
The Team Is working on this particular plank to our Policy.
Feel Free To watch this work in progress and, by all means, feel free to comment or contribute to the discussion.
Our overall goal is to enable contractors who are representative of expanded diversity, to be able to control their own destiny.
Under my administration discussions concerning Diversity of our economy will not simply be limited to focus on the types of industries prevalent in our city. Diversity will be approached from various perspectives. That includes the make-up of participants. The impact on the various areas of economy is equally as important as the locales and concentration to ensure the greatest upon impact.
Ideally, the pool of companies providing resources should be owned by diverse groups of Females and Males; Blacks, Whites, LatinX, and Asians; Disabled Persons; Veterans; as well as Mature and Younger persons.
To enable a more diverse group of contractors, vendors and suppliers to respond to Requests For Proposals (RFP) and offer competitive bids, I will:
- Cut the Procurement Department Red tape;
- Unbundle government contracts to provide smaller Request For Proposals;
- Subject to transparency and scrutiny, allow bidders to lease cost prohibitive equipment rather than require them to own that equipment;
- Provide wrap up bonding and insurance; and
- Provide Start-up Access to Capital Grants and Loans to ensure these firms have the ability to lease equipment and meet their initial payrolls.
Once these measures are in place, emerging contractors will not be limited to participation as Sub-contractors.
These measures will enable emerging contractors to compete on equal footing with the larger more established contractors. Rather than pleading for Inclusion based upon the concept of any mandated Equity and Diversity requirements, and reliance on the generosity or kind consideration of established Prime contractors, they will be able to bid as Prime contractors, themselves.
When that happens, the pool of bidders in response to each RFP will be much larger than it has been in the past.
The more rigorous competition fueled by this larger number of bidders will result in lower costs per project.
They are also likely to reduce procurement costs by as much as ten percent (10%).
