Nearly eight months after the Urbana, Illinois City Council approved funds for a “Community Safety Review”, the City is finally searching for proposals. 

A Request for Qualifications (RFQ), titled “Community Safety Review Through the Lens of Racial Equity and Social Justice”, was posted to the City’s website by the City Management Analyst William Kolschowsky on February 23^rd.

The RFQ is six pages long, and it reads very open-ended.  Kolschowsky asks for proposals up to 30 pages in length, and provides the following general description:

“The City of Urbana is seeking proposals from qualified firms to provide a detailed review of the methods for providing services related to community safety. The intent is to reconsider the traditional roles of public safety departments (specifically, police and fire) as well as other City departments, as appropriate. The goal is to promote community safety and well-being in ways that minimize harm related to race, poverty, and other social factors.”

Proposals are due by the end of March.

The RFQ indicates that the City of Urbana would like to select a contractor by June 1^st, 2022.  After selection, the chosen bidder will provide their overview of Urbana’s “Existing Conditions” by December 1^st, 2022, and propose a “Transition and Implementation” plan by December 1^st, 2023.

To source the funds for this review, on June 28^th, 2021 the Council voted unanimously to redirect $92,500 from the failed “One Door” program and $94,258 allocated in the FY2022 budget for an alternate response model.  The $92,500 had been allocated by the Council in June of 2020, so those funds have now been stagnant for nearly twenty months now.

It is not clear if the Urbana City Council will be consulted in any way in regards to the firm selection process.  When Urbana last hired a consulting firm for a review of police policies and a violent arrest that occurred in April of 2020, the Mayor made all selection decisions unilaterally.

The City of Urbana Request for Qualifications: “Community Safety Review Through the Lens of Racial Equity and Social Justice (Solicitation #2122-45) can be viewed here (click image for full 6-page PDF):