It’s not easy to hire consultants at City Hall, according to Cleveland Chief Operating Officer Bonnie Teeuwen. She told City Council this week that landing a consultant is a 40-step, nine-month process.
Teeuwen would like to eliminate one link in that chain, the Consultant Review Committee. The committee checks over mailing lists of prospective consultants and processes their proposals.
As a top official in Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration, Teeuwen serves on that committee, along with the directors of finance and human resources. She’s also seen the other side of the issue. She used to work for Osborn Engineering, one of the city’s go-to firms for infrastructure projects. (Among Osborn’s city jobs was the most recent repair audit of Browns Stadium.)
“There’s a bunch of consultants out there that throw their hands up because they don’t want to go through the process,” she said.
Losing the review committee would cut a month out of the process, she said. Even without it, contracts would still go through the Board of Control, a body made up of cabinet members, Teeuwen said.
Council President Blaine Griffin stuck up for the Consultant Review Committee. He proposed legislation to enshrine the committee into city law. He cast it as a move for transparency — and for keeping jilted applicants from bending his ear.
“I’m also a very huge proponent of really trying to have a public process where vendors and others can — I hope they’re watching — quit calling me to say that there’s no process in place and that the administration is just picking who they would like to,” he said.
Griffin’s idea did not win the day. Other council members said they’d like the city to sign contracts and finish projects faster.
Ward 8’s Michael Polensek put his views in gastrointestinal terms, as only he can.
“We need legislative Ex-Lax around here, let me tell you,” he said. “We got to get things moving around here.”
