Committee members reviewed results from a short procurement for a town sandpit/community planning effort and debated the merits of the blind, online scoring process used to rank three bidders.

Rick (Open Space Committee member) summarized the procurement: three proposals were received from firms identified as Niche, Tie and Bond, and Community Scale. Rick said the selection panel used a blind, online submission process with four reviewers and that Niche ranked highest because its proposal emphasized community outreach and environmental concerns.

“I scored each moderately higher than the other two,” Rick said, noting Niche’s schedule and community-engagement approach as differentiators. He also said that because the budget was fixed at $50,000 for the work, the price criterion provided little differentiation.

Several members said they preferred the committee’s prior process — an in-person review where reviewers could discuss proposals and clarify schedules and deliverables. One member said the blind online process risked losing useful cross-review discussion and made it hard to know who reviewed the proposals. A different committee member said the anonymity reduces the chance that a single personality dominates scoring.

Committee members discussed next steps: the selected consultant (Niche) is expected to begin outreach activities and the town will hold a townwide meeting and a smaller ongoing working group that will likely include the planning board and a few committee members. Members asked for a screenshot or saved record of the evaluation as part of the procurement file; Nate (town staff) offered to provide screenshots or otherwise document the scoring submissions to improve transparency.

No formal award vote was recorded in the meeting transcript; the committee received the report on the ranking and discussed process issues and next steps.