Opinion piece. You’ll only read this stuff here.
”You can’t make this up.” I am losing count the number of times I heard this line in the past few months. This coming Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Education (SFBoE) will be asked to approve a not-competitively-bid $1.8 million contract to a company in Texas. Yes, the state which just enacted the most restrictive abortion law in the country. It’s for such abortion-restrictive laws that the City of San Francisco has a running policy of refusing business with that state.
But this consent item 99 will most likely be approved. Why? Because the SFBoE just recently approved a not-competitively-bid contract with a University in Kentucky. In fact those two states are on the short double blacklisted list because of both abortion-restrictive laws and anti-LGBT laws.
Granted, the action is not against City law, as District General Counsel Danielle Houck described that the SFUSD is a separate entity from the city. But what message does this sort of action send to the City that provides direly needed millions to the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD)? What message does this action send to LGBTQ+ youth and families? What message does this action send to students and families that disagree with the Texas and Kentucky abortion-restrictive laws?
In both cases, the vote could have been avoidable.
The Texas contract is for a company, VFA Accruent, to do a facilities assessment in preparation for a potential November 2022 $1,000,000,000 (one billion) Facilities Bond. The VFA bid was dated January of this year, 8 months prior to this Tuesday’s vote. In that period, a true formal competitive Request For Proposal (RFP) could have gone out, been vetted, and had another vendor chosen. This VFA company may know barbecue beef brisket from Austin, TX, but it has no familiarity with old school buildings on earthquake fault zones.
Oh and the source of the funds for this Texas contract? San Francisco voter approved Facilities Bond money from a 2016 Proposition.
Facilities staff and SFBoE Commissioners were alerted to this concern at several meetings in the spring by this author and another in Public Comments, especially the Buildings and Grounds Committee Meetings chaired by Vice President Faauuga Moliga.
The Kentucky contract was related to the Equity Audit and Action Committee, as part of the February Resolution to make Lowell permament lottery, 216-22S08. Flagging of this concern by many in Public Comment in meetings prior to and during the June 8 Board vote did not bring about any change in vendor. Unanimous approval, 7-0.
What would it take to get 4 SFBoE Commissioners to vote no on sending money to Texas? Consider sending emails. Consider calling in. Consent item E99, Contract No 5379.