Summary

The Tompkins County Department of Planning & Sustainability is soliciting a qualified consultant(s) to develop a Resiliency and Recovery Plan for Tompkins County, NY.

Proposals from interested contractors must be submitted by 3:00 PM (EST) Wednesday July 25th, 2019 to the Tompkins County Purchasing Department through https://www.bidnetdirect.com/new-york.

Contact

Email questions to Scott D. Doyle, AICP, Associate Planner, Tompkins County, sdoyle@tompkins-co.org.

RFP Website

All information about this RFP will be posted to https://www.bidnetdirect.com/new-york

For any questions related to this RFP please send an email to the contact noted above. Answers to questions received via email by July 8, 2019 will be posted to the RFP Bid Net Direct website by July 12, 2019.

The information in this RFP is organized as follows:

1. Project Management

2. Definitions

3. Project Work Scope

4. Project Timeline

5. Selection Process

6. Submission Requirements

7. Evaluation Criteria

8. Deadline

1. Project Management

The Tompkins County Department of Planning and Sustainability will be the administrative agency for the study and staff will be tasked with management and contract administration for the Project. The Resiliency and Recovery Plan (RRP) will be developed with guidance from the Resiliency and Recovery Plan Team (Team) with targeted input from the Technical Advisory Group.

It is anticipated that the plan will be completed and adopted by April 30, 2021 including submission to FEMA for approval of the hazard mitigation planning portion followed by local adoption. Consultant services are anticipated to be utilized for approximately 24 months beginning in August 2019.

2. Definitions

Mitigation: Investments in actions to reduce loss of life and property by lessening the impact of disasters.

Response: Activities and processes to follow from the start to end of a disaster event (Note: this is not the focus of this RRP, as it is covered under plans developed and implemented by the Tompkins County Department of Emergency Response).

Recovery: Activities and processes to follow both during a disaster event, and for a period of post-disaster, to speed effective economic and community rebounding.

Resiliency: Ability for community to quickly adapt and recover its functionality post-disaster

3. Project Work Scope

The following is the scope of work expected of a consultant to assist the County in developing the Tompkins County Resiliency and Recovery Plan (RRP). When possible, plans will be developed in a web-based platform that is both open sourced and non-proprietary.  Consultant support will specifically be required to assist the County in creating each of the following distinct documents.

1. Update the Tompkins County Hazard Mitigation Plan. Plan update must be implemented in such a way that satisfies requirements of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and New York State Hazard Mitigation Planning Standards. This will include developing a prioritized list of actions to pursue to address identified hazards and community risks.
2. Develop a County Debris Management Plan. Plan should establish procedures and guidelines for managing disaster-related debris along roadways and in streams and drainage ditches in a coordinated, environmentally-responsible, and cost-effective manner. This will include a prioritized list of actions to pursue to address identified issues.
3. Undertake a Critical Infrastructure Drought and Flood Analysis. Building on the Hazard Mitigation Plan update’s vulnerability assessment of community critical facilities, including high hazard dams and unaccredited levees, consultant will perform more in-depth engineering analyses of, at minimum, drought and flood vulnerabilities of critical facilities and identify methods to improve resiliency both during and after a drought- or flood-related disaster. This will include developing a prioritized list of actions to pursue to address identified issues.
4. Develop a Resiliency and Recovery Plan (RRP) Part I: Community Resiliency. Part I of the Resiliency and Recovery Plan will summarize and synthesize the key findings in the above documents I-III (Mitigation Plan Update; Debris Management Plan and Critical Infrastructure Flood and Drought Analysis) and prioritize actions from those documents after reviewing the actions together. This will include grouping the actions into activities that should begin within 5 years of the date the RRP is finalized, and ones that could begin in years 5-10.
5. Develop the Resiliency and Recovery Plan (RRP) Part II: Community Economic Recovery. Part II of the Resiliency and Recovery Plan will include a review of the Tompkins County Department of Emergency Response’s Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan including its Recovery Annex to identify the critical gaps in community recovery support between the time of disaster initiation and long-term community economic recovery. The consultant will help the County define the length of time that should constitute “long-term”, be it 6 months post-disaster, 3 years post-disaster, or longer. The Consultant will then undertake a series of additional measures related to recovery planning (more information below) and provide a summary of key economic recovery actions recommended for implementation.  For both Parts I and II of the RRP, the consultant will recommend specific actions that can be undertaken during disaster response that will, in effect, begin recovery efforts.
6. Define and Implement a Public Participation and Outreach Strategy. The Consultant will work with the County Resiliency and Recovery Planning Team to design an outreach plan that allows easy and impactful engagement with stakeholders and the public in developing the plan. Included in the strategy shall be recommendations and implementation of methods to ensure best use of the RRP in the future by stakeholders and the general public.
7. Tompkins County RRP Integration - The Consultant will take each of the plan components and develop a fully integrated RRP Draft for Team review and, based on the Team’s feedback, prepare a Final RRP.

See full Scope Details at https://www.bidnetdirect.com/new-york

4. Project Timeline

A timeline should be included with the response to this RFP.  It is anticipated that the Tompkins County Resiliency and Recovery Plan will be completed by April 30, 2021. Consultant services are anticipated to be utilized beginning on or before August 2019 and through August 2021. The Tompkins County Department of Planning & Sustainability intends to submit the resiliency plan portion of RRP which contains the mitigation plan to the County Legislature and FEMA for endorsement and approval in March 2021, the balance of the plan will be brought to the County Legislature in late 2021.

5. Selection Process

The County will review proposals and may invite multiple consultants to be interviewed. Final decisions regarding consultant selection will be based on interviews and Evaluation Criteria specified below.  The County will ideally contract with a single consultant who may manage a consultant team, however multiple consultants may be identified by the county for separate contracting to help achieve the complex scope.

Once a consultant is selected, the Consultant will work with the County Department of Planning & Sustainability to negotiate a final contract document, including a detailed scope of work.  All contract documents will be executed with Tompkins County and will conform to the County’s policies and procedures.  The selection process should be completed within 45 days of the submission of responses.

6. Submission Requirements

Responses to this Request for Proposals should include the following:

1. Statement of general and technical approach to the work outlined in the scope of this Request for Proposals, including a description of the recommended process and cost estimates for completing the items identified in the Project Work Scope. 

2. Lead Consultant Information. For the lead (or sole) consulting firm, provide the following information:

a.       Firm name
b.       Mailing address
c.       Telephone
d.       Website
e.       Contact name, email, phone number
f.        Form of Organization (partnership, corporation, sole proprietorship, etc.)
g.       Names of principals, officers, and directors

3. Additional Consultants (if applicable). For each member of the consultant team, provide the following:

a.       Firm name
b.       Mailing address
c.       Telephone
d.       Website

4. Key Personnel. For key personnel to be involved in the project, please provide names, titles, period of service with the firm, and a resume or description of experience. Please limit responses to no more than two pages per person.

5. Detailed Project Proposal. Complete proposal including the estimated project budget broken down by each specific work program item identified in the Project Work Scope (no more than ten pages)

6. Statement of Qualifications. Provide a narrative description (up to five pages) of the qualifications of the consulting firm, or consulting team, for the proposed project.

7. Statement of Availability. Provide a brief statement on the availability of key personnel to undertake the proposed project, within the identified timeframe, starting on or about September 2019 and finishing within approximately 24 months from the start date.

8. List of Relevant Projects. Provide a list of no fewer than three and up to five projects equal in size or nature to the proposed project that have been successfully completed within the last seven years by the consulting firm, consulting team, or key personnel.

9. References. Provide names, telephone numbers, and emails of persons to be called for references regarding past performance of the consulting firm, consulting team, or key personnel on similar projects.

7. Evaluation Criteria

Consultant(s) will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Experience and expertise in hazard mitigation, resiliency and recovery planning.
• Experience working with communities similar to Tompkins County and its partner municipalities.
• Experience in developing strong public participation campaigns to diverse audiences.
• Experience developing creative, interactive planning documents.
• Ability to accomplish projects in a professional, thorough, and timely manner.
• Experience and expertise in developing detailed, long-term multi-jurisdictional plans.
• Qualifications of people and resources assigned to the project.
• Ability to work well with County Department of Planning and Sustainability Department, the plan’s Project Team and Technical Committee as well as diverse members of the public.
• Cost effectiveness of services provided.

Ability to solicit meaningful input from project Teams and Advisory Group, municipal and other stakeholders, and the general public.

8. Deadline

The deadline for submission of proposals is 3:00 PM (EST) Thursday, July 25th, 2019.  Submissions should be all electronic copies of the response. Responses should be submitted via https://www.bidnetdirect.com/new-york.

A copy of the Request for Proposals may be obtained upon registration at the following website:

https://www.bidnetdirect.com/new-york

The County reserves the right to reject any or all responses and to negotiate with any company submitting a response. Proposals will not be accepted by mail, fax or electronic file transfer.

[1] For all aspects of the plan development, the Consultant will collect and analyze data and conditions necessary for conducting assessment and studies based on FEMA and New York State mitigation planning standards