Consultant for Facilitation and Mediation Services

The Vendor is required to provide outstanding service to each of its residents and to address the challenges that prevent residents from achieving the highest levels of well-being.
- This often means tackling complex issues and proposing novel solutions. for example, the city is currently leading a community conversation about siting a new public safety building; coordinating with other cities and state agencies in developing plans to address public health and water quality concerns; offering outreach to educate residents on public health and water quality issues; and determining how to best coordinate city service efforts across city departments and departments within the schools.
- Provide to engage the services of qualified facilitator consultant firms with demonstrated expertise and experience in public engagement, outreach, and facilitation and mediation, and who can support the city’s efforts to hold productive conversations and effectively and equitably move through decision-making processes to come to a resolution that recognizes the diversity of the opinions that shaped the decision, both with internal and external stakeholders, and is in line with the city’s commitment to equity.
- Help develop outreach, engagement, and consensus building strategies and programs for city projects, which can range from planning through design and construction of large capital infrastructure projects, including public utilities and municipal buildings.
- Develop stakeholder needs assessments by conducting confidential interviews, focus groups, and public meetings to: gather information on contentious subjects or situations, consolidate and distill the data gathered, and make recommendations to the city about how to further engage and build consensus.
- Facilitate, lead, and mediate on-line and in-person multilingual workshops and public forum meetings with stakeholders and the public to seek input, engage citizens in meaningful deliberation on critical issues, and help create solutions to complex problems. 
- City staff will provide translation and interpretation services during workshops and public focus meetings.
- Develop engagement materials, either in collaboration with city staff and their other consultants or, with city approval, by themselves, using high quality graphics easily understood by people with a range of English competency.
- Facilitate collaborative visioning and planning with city staff and departments.
- Provide mediation services for the city when a decision-making process has reached an impasse.
- Provide training for city staff on facilitation and mediating difficult conversations.
- Providing additional services as needed.
- Contract Period/Term: 1 year
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: July 08, 2025