• Kearns & West is one of the three on-call facilitation providers for the City of Vancouver.
• Kearns & West is currently leading facilitation of the charter review process, which is scheduled to wrap up by July 31, 2024.
• The City's current contract with Kearns & West for on-call facilitation expires April 30, 2024.
• The contract amendment extends the contract to July 31, 2024, to align with the completion of the charter review process.

The City currently utilizes Kearns & West for on-call facilitation services, including the charter review process that is underway.

The current professional services agreement with Kearns & West was entered into on May 1, 2019, and was for a period of five years. The agreement was to provide facilitation services for a variety of different processes and meetings and other related services on an as needed basis and was in response to RFP No. 2-19.

Kearns & West engaged with the City to facilitate the charter review process in October 2023. The process is currently underway with a Council workshop scheduled for May 20, 2024 to present the Charter Review Committee’s recommendations to Council. Depending on Council action on the Committee’s recommendations, Kearns & West will be asked to assist staff in preparing ballot materials.

To allow Kearns & West to continue work on the charter review process, staff are requesting an amendment to extend the Kearns & West professional services agreement, currently expiring April 30, 2024, to instead expire July 31, 2024.

City staff have commenced a new procurement process for on-call facilitation services.

Allows for continuity in the facilitation of the charter review process as the Charter Review Committee finalizes recommendations for Council.