Equity in Community Engagement Questions.pdf

Equity in Community Engagement Questions and Answers

Published: December 9, 2021

Question: Are there any translation or interpretation services that the RPC can provide to support outreach on this project? Or would any translation/interpretation services need to be done by the consultant?

Answer: If the Proposer would like to suggest services that require translation/interpretation, please include the cost of those services in the proposal. If the Proposer will be contracting with a vendor to provide translation/interpretation services, remember to list that vendor as a subconsultant in the proposal and proper accompanying attachments found in the RFP (the Bid Opportunity List and the

Assurance of Eligibility and Compliance form).

Question: There are font details in the RFP, but nothing on page limit. Is there a page limit? And, if so, does it include covers and/or dividers?

Answer: There is no page limit to the proposal.

Question: What is the anticipated funding level for this work? (Similar questions: What is the budget for this project? Does the ECWRPC have an ideal budget range or maximum budget designated for this project? This will help us right size our proposed workplan to be responsive to the resources available.)

Answer: This is a quality-based selection project, and each proposer is encouraged to provide details sufficient to outline the project and a budget the aligns with the proposed scope of work.

Question: Is the funding level more aligned to support a local consultant or locally based organization seeking to respond to the RFP?

Answer: We feel that the funding level is sufficient to select a consultant outside of the region’s geography and provide ability for travel-related expenses, within reason.

Question: Does the funding level allocated to the project welcome large research institutions to be considered to partner with ECWRPC to accomplish this important work?

Answer: Any style of consulting firm or research agency that can bring experience, insight, and knowledge on this project is welcome to provide a proposal.

Question: The RFP asks us to include in our proposals the number of people and hours assigned to this project with information in a spreadsheet format. Is it preferred that we upload this separately as an Excel spreadsheet? Or could we insert a table format into the proposal that breaks this down?

Answer: Either option is acceptable, but it is preferred to have it inserted as a table format into the proposal for easy reference. Please remember not to include costs in those estimates, as those should be uploaded in the project budget, which is required to be sent over as a separate attachment.

Question: We were not able to locate Attachments A-C in the Wisconsin VendorNet website.

Could you please include a copy of these attachments with the Q&A addendum?

Answer: Absolutely! Our apologies that these were not included when we update the RFP. They are now uploaded as additional attachments in VendorNet and on our website.

Question: The RFP states that we must identify any subcontractors on an attached form to be submitted with our proposal. Can you confirm whether this is needed in addition to identifying subcontractors in the “Description of Firm” section? If so, can you please provide the subcontractor form attachment with the Q&A addendum?

Answer: Yes, please identify them as part of the RFP with a description of the firm, and please also include their information in Attachment B. Note that Attachment B also applies to any firm who reached out expressing interest in partnering.

Question: The RFP says "responsible for coordinating with ECWRPC staff to obtain pertinent demographic information". What sort of disaggregation is available that might be used in understanding which communities to focus on? For example... disaggregation by race, ethnicity, tribal affiliation, age, gender, language, income, etc.

Answer: We obtain our data from the US Census (ACS and decennial) and from ESRI, and we can break this data out by Census tract or block group. Examples of data can be found in our existing plans and reports (https://www.ecwrpc.org/documents/) and on our Transportation Hub (https://transportation-ecwrpc.opendata.arcgis.com/).

Question: Are the intended users of the guidebook primarily cities, counties and other public agencies? Or do they include other types of organizations, too, such as education institutions, nonprofits, foundations, and for-profit companies?

Answer: The primary consumer of the guidebook will be ECWRPC, with the intent that this will also be a reference for local units of government in the Appleton (Fox Cities) TMA and Oshkosh MPO.

Question: Can you describe more about what meaningful engagement means to you in this process? How many community members would you like to engage in order to develop a meaningful result?

Answer: For the process of developing the toolkit and guidebook, we would like to engage the broader community to understand how engagement and outreach efforts have served residents. We encourage proposers to include what the engagement could look like for this process. Examples could include one-on-one meetings, focus groups, surveys, outreach to community organizations, etc.

As for the number of community members, we are more interested in reaching out to a diverse group of residents/organizations versus aiming for volume. The purpose of this phase of the project should help inform the Consultant and ECWRPC of the following (this is not an exhaustive list):

• Their current level of knowledge of ECWRPC

• How have they been engaged in previous planning efforts, either through ECWRPC or their community

• What does (or might) impede their ability to engage in planning efforts?

• What does (or might) encourage their participation in planning efforts?

https://www.ecwrpc.org/documents/ https://transportation-ecwrpc.opendata.arcgis.com/

• What does meaningful engagement and input look like to them?

Question: There are comments from Matt embedded in the document about a timeline of May vs. Nov. 22. Are any other deadlines, such as proposal submission, subject to change?

Answer: We do not anticipate any further changes rather than a change to the deadline for the final product deliverable.

Question: When is the Transportation Improvement Program engagement progress expected to happen?

The Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) is voted on by our commissioners each year at the

October Commission meeting, which is the last Friday of the month (on a quarterly basis). The TIP update process generally begins in the summer, so, in this case, the summer of 2022. We anticipate engagement will be in August and September of 2022, but we welcome additional recommendations from the proposers. Please note that the development of and conducting of TIP engagement can occur in tandem with the process of developing the toolkit and guidebook.

Question: We are wondering if we can have access to review ECWRPC's current and past engagement efforts?

The best resource is ECWRPC’s 2021 and 2022 Transportation Work Programs and Budget. There is a section that breaks out our outreach efforts in the Title VI appendix:

https://www.ecwrpc.org/documents/. Additionally, this site has a host of documents that can be reviewed for various engagement and outreach efforts, including Transit Development Plans and

Long Range Transportation Plans. Another resources is the Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan, which can be found here: https://www.ecwrpc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Draft-Appleton-TMA-and-

Oshkosh-MPO-Bicycle-and-Pedestrian-Plan-2021.pdf.

A streamlined platform for transportation-specific plans can be found here: https://transportation-ecwrpc.opendata.arcgis.com/pages/planning-docs.

https://www.ecwrpc.org/documents/ https://www.ecwrpc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Draft-Appleton-TMA-and-Oshkosh-MPO-Bicycle-and-Pedestrian-Plan-2021.pdf https://www.ecwrpc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Draft-Appleton-TMA-and-Oshkosh-MPO-Bicycle-and-Pedestrian-Plan-2021.pdf https://transportation-ecwrpc.opendata.arcgis.com/pages/planning-docs https://transportation-ecwrpc.opendata.arcgis.com/pages/planning-docs