Memorandum
Date: June 7, 2023
To: The Honorable Lake County Board of Supervisors, Sitting as the Directors of the Lake County Watershed Protection District.
From: Marina Deligiannis, Deputy Water Resources Director and Scott De Leon, Director Water Resources
Subject: (a) Waive the formal bidding process, pursuant to Lake County’s Code Section 38.2, as it is not in the public interest due to the unique nature of goods or services and (b) Authorize the Water Resources Director, on behalf of the Lake County Watershed Protection District, to sign and enter into an Agreement with CivicWell for independent contractor services through the AmeriCorps CivicSpark Fellowship in the amount of $31,000 for one (1) CivicSpark Fellow to develop an Aquatic Invasive Species Outreach Assessment and Improvement Plan.
Executive Summary:
The Lake County Watershed Protection District (District) applied for and was accepted as a partner organization with CivicWell (Formerly known as the Local Government Commissions) CivicSpark Fellowship for the 2023-2024 service year. The District will receive one (1) CivicSpark Fellow to conduct an Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) Outreach Assessment and Improvement Plan. The Fellow will work closely with District staff to learn about AIS programs being conducted throughout the county, with a focus on the Invasive Mussel Prevention Program. Through these efforts, the Fellow will strengthen the effectiveness of the District’s Lakebed Management and several of the aquatic invasive species programs such as the Quagga Mussel Prevention Program and the Clear Lake Integrated Aquatic Plant Management Program. The Fellow will conduct assessments and surveys to determine how the programs can be improved through development of outreach, education, informative materials and products.
CivicSpark is a Governor’s Initiative AmeriCorps program dedicated to building capacity for public agencies throughout California in order to address community resilience issues. CivicSpark provides local agencies with Fellows who serve full time for an 11 month service year with each Fellow providing at least 1,700 hours of service dedicated to a capacity building project. Fellows are employed through CivicWell and their salary, insurance, and workers compensation are all structured through CivicWell. Lake County has hosted AmeriCorps CivicSpark Fellows since 2017, and the District has hosted CivicSpark Fellows since 2020.
This year, the District’s CivicSpark Fellowship will mostly be funded by a US Fish & Wildlife grant received by the District in 2021 and previously approved by the Board of Directors. The grant provides $31,000 towards the position.
We recommend that your Board utilize Section 38.2 Not in the Public Interest of Chapter 2 of the Lake County Code, specifically items (2) and (3) of that section, which allows the Board to waive competitive bidding based on the following findings:
(2) The unique nature of the goods or services precludes competitive bidding, and
(3) A determination that competitive bidding would produce no economic benefit to the County.
In accordance with Ordinance 3109, which further defines the criteria for the use of the aforementioned section, I offer the following justifications for the above-referenced findings:
The CivicSpark Fellowship selects Fellows who go through a highly competitive national application process. The application process requires Fellows to pass an in-depth state and federal background check, and at a minimum, to have a college degree in a relevant field. CivicSpark provides Lake County’s local public agencies dedicated project support from emerging professionals who receive professional development and sector training. These benefits include but are not limited to:
• Direct support for specific resiliency project needs with defined outcomes.
• Increased capacity for sustainable communities and response community resilience needs.
• A pipeline for future resiliency efforts.
• Stronger State-local partnerships for information and expertise exchange.
• A workforce with local expertise in climate change, energy, water, or social issues.
• Access to affordable resources, resulting in increased capacity and hands-on training.
• Increased volunteerism at the local level.
These immeasurable benefits to our community are unique to and welded through the mission of CivicSpark making it unlikely that CivicSpark would be surpassed by an alternative approach using the appropriate criteria.
Additionally, if the District followed the route of a competitive bidding process, the District would miss the opportunity of the above benefits as it is not in the nature of CivicSpark to submit proposals under a competitive bidding process. This is due to the nature that the CivicSpark Fellowship is a service year through the AmeriCorps Program.
This request was submitted and approved by the BOS last year, however due to failure to recruit a fellow to complete the described project, a grant extension has been filed and this position is re-opened this year. Today we are asking for approval again for this Civic Spark position. Thank you.
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Recommended Action:
(a) Waive the formal bidding process, pursuant to Lake County’s Code Section 38.2, as it is not in the public interest due to the unique nature of goods or services and (b) Authorize the Water Resources Director, on behalf of the Lake County Watershed Protection District, to sign and enter an Agreement with CivicWell for independent contractor services through the AmeriCorps CivicSpark Fellowship in the amount of $31,000 for one (1) CivicSpark Fellow to develop an Aquatic Invasive Species Outreach Assessment and Improvement Plan.