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CC - ACTION ITEM: (1) Update on Staff’s Efforts to Solicit Proposals for a Consultant to Develop and Conduct a Civic Assembly; (2) Discussion of Proposals Received from Consultants; (3) (If Desired) Create an Ad Hoc Subcommittee and Appoint Council Members thereto, to Evaluate the Proposals and Make a Recommendation to the City Council; (4) (If Desired) Approval of a Professional Services Agreement with a Consultant to Develop and Conduct a Civic Assembly; and (5) Other Direction to the City Manager as Deemed Appropriate.
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Meeting Date: November 10, 2025
Contact Person/Dept: Elizabeth Shavelson/Finance Department
Phone Number: (310) 253-5865
Fiscal Impact: Yes [X] No [] General Fund: Yes [X] No []
Attachments: Yes [X] No []
Public Notification: (Email) Meetings and Agendas - City Council (11/06/2025); (Email) Ongoing Topics - Fiscal and Budget Issues (11/06/2025)
Department Approval: Lisa Soghor, Chief Financial Officer (11/06/2025)
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RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends the City Council (1) receive update on staff’s effort to solicit competitive quotes for a consultant to conduct a civic assembly; (2) discuss proposals received from consultants; (3) (if desired) create an ad hoc subcommittee and appoint Council Members thereto, to evaluate the proposals and make a recommendation to City Council; (4) (if desired) approve a professional services agreement with a consultant to develop and conduct a civic assembly; and (5) provide other direction to the City Manager as deemed appropriate.
BACKGROUND
On May 19-20, 2025, the City Council received presentations on the Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2025-2026. During the discussion, Council Member Fish and Council Member McMorrin proposed and received Council consensus that a one-time funding enhancement in the amount of $250,000 be added to the Finance Department budget to create a new community-centered budget process through the potential use of a civic assembly process. During the meeting, City Council consensus was achieved by Vice Mayor Puza, Council Member Fish and Council Member McMorrin to agendize consideration of a participatory budget process.
On June 9, 2025, the City Council approved the Adopted Budget for Fiscal Year 2025-2026 which included $250,000 for budget outreach consultant services and requested that staff return to Council for more direction regarding how the funding would be spent.
On July 8, 2025, the City Council Standing Governance Subcommittee (“Subcommittee”), comprised of Council Members Fish and McMorrin, received a presentation on civic assemblies from Public Democracy Los Angeles representatives Michelle Dennis and Wayne Liebman. Ms. Dennis and Mr. Liebman explained that a civic assembly is a demographically representative group of community members selected by lottery to learn about and deliberate upon a public matter and make recommendations to City Council. Participants are compensated for their time and provided with comprehensive support including, but not limited to, childcare, elder care, and translation services.
The Subcommittee discussed how a civic assembly process could be used to help the City develop strategies to promote public participation in the budget process, the potential timeline to create and implement a civic assembly, and next steps including developing a request for proposals (RFP) for consultant services to lead the process. The Subcommittee also discussed the possibility of forgoing the City’s request for proposal process; however, the Subcommittee did not make a recommendation on the process for consultant selection. The Subcommittee directed staff to bring the item to Council for further discussion and direction regarding next steps.
On October 13, City Council, by consensus, invited Michelle Dennis and Wayne Liebman from Public Democracy Los Angeles to make a presentation to City Council on the benefits of civic assemblies and how they can help the City develop strategies to increase public participation in the budget process and present their recommendation for foregoing an RFP process and selecting Healthy Democracy to conduct a civic assembly for the City.
On October 27, the City Council considered conducting a civic assembly to develop strategies to increase public participation in the budget process. Michelle Dennis and Wayne Liebman prepared a short paper titled “Selecting a Facilitator for a Culver City Civic Assembly” which concluded that the City should select Heathy Democracy on the basis of being a “sole source provider” and forgo an RFP process. The short paper produced by Michelle Dennis and Wayne Liebman was provided as an attachment to the staff report. During the meeting, Michelle Dennis gave a presentation on civic assemblies and recommended that the City forgo an RFP and award a contract to Healthy Democracy to conduct the civic assembly. Healthy Democracy provided a budget of the proposed assembly to include 20 participates and 4 deliberative sessions at a cost of $250,000. A copy of the October 27 staff report and attachments is provided as Attachment 1.
By majority vote, Council authorized conducting a civic assembly to consider how the public wants to be engaged or participate in the City’s budget process, placed a cap on the budget for the civic assembly of $250,000 to include all City costs and directed staff to solicit proposals from other organizations to develop and conduct a civic assembly.
During the October 27 discussion, some members of the Council indicated that they would ideally like the civic assembly participants in place in time to observe the City’s existing budget process for the upcoming fiscal year and then convene the assembly for deliberation in summer 2026 so that the assembly could develop recommendations for Council consideration for the Fiscal Year 2027-2028 budget process.
While City staff begins working on the proposed budget in December/January, the City begins hosting public meetings regarding the budget in the spring. The City is currently planning to hold public meetings to review the City Department’s Work Plans the first week of March. The public meetings to review the Proposed Budget are tentatively scheduled for late May.
DISCUSSION
Project Budget and Estimated City Costs
To develop an estimate of City costs associated with conducting a civic assembly, staff considered the scope of work outlined in the proposed budget submitted by Healthy Democracy which was based on 4 full days of deliberation. The City’s cost considerations include part-time staffing at the City-supplied assembly venue (either the Veteran’s Memorial Building or the Senior Center), overtime for eligible staff to perform recording secretary duties at the weekend assembly meetings, third-party production of meeting minutes, third-party audio-visual services to record and stream the assemblies, and marketing such as paid ads in newspaper and social media. Staff anticipates that these costs could total approximately $15,000 - $20,000. Additional costs may be identified depending on Council direction.
Some of these cost considerations depend on whether the City Council establishes the civic assembly as a body that is subject to the Brown Act. For example, if the civic assembly meetings are subject to the Brown Act, the City will be required to not only produce meeting agendas and minutes but may also be required to provide remote access to the public. This is discussed in more detail in the Brown Act section below.
This cost estimate does not include City staff time to coordinate project implementation with the consultant, present budget information to assembly members, conduct public outreach, coordinate with third-party service providers, coordinate the venue accommodations and other meeting logistics, produce agendas if required and be available to provide information and other support during the civic assembly deliberation process. City personnel costs are already included in the City’s Adopted Budget for Fiscal Year 2025-2026, but this will divert staff time and attention away from other work plan priorities and ongoing responsibilities.
Healthy Democracy Revised Budget and Draft Timeline
Staff met with Justin Reedy and Linn Davis from Healthy Democracy to discuss their proposed scope, budget and timeline. Healthy Democracy submitted an updated budget and timeline with key dates/requests, based on Council direction and the discussion during the October 27 Regular Meeting.
Healthy Democracy submitted a revised proposal reducing the cost from $250,000 to $230,000 to account for estimated City costs.
It is provided as Attachment 1.
Soliciting Proposals
In the week since the October 27 City Council Meeting, staff reached out to multiple organizations and was able to connect with a few. From this process, staff found that there are several organizations that work in this space that have experience conducting civic assemblies and/or similar deliberative processes with demographically representative groups. Staff spoke with representatives from Civic Genius (a program of the National Civic League), Center for New Democratic Processes, Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford University, and Unify America. With more time, staff could have likely connected with more organizations. Staff provided background on the City’s discussions regarding increasing public participation in the budget process, the Council’s October 27 decision to conduct a civic assembly to examine how to increase public participation in the budget process with budget cap of $250,000 including the City’s costs and solicit additional proposals for this work.
Since staff first received Council direction to move forward with conducting a civic assembly on October 27 and the City does not have an established scope of work for the project, staff solicited brief proposals to include information on the organization’s experience and provide ideas or a high-level overview of their draft scope of work and budget based on the initial feedback from Council. As a result, the “proposals” received are not uniform in nature but serve to provide information about the organizations and their approach to conducting a civic assembly for Culver City.
During these discussions, the following questions were raised:
• What is the deliverable of the Civic Assembly?
• What are the City Council’s goals and expectations for the Civic Assembly?
• Is 20 people sufficient to provide demographic representation of the City?
• How many participants does the City wish to include and what size should the panel be to achieve valid demographic representation of the City?
• Is the City open to working collaboratively to reframe the question and develop the scope?
Some concerns were also expressed including the short turnaround to develop complete and/or thoughtful proposals, the importance of taking the time to design the process for the intended goals, the need for greater clarity around the scope and remit question, the timeline for the work, the feasibility of selecting a participant panel in time to attend the City’s Work Plan Meetings in the beginning of March, the benefits of having participants attend the City’s Fiscal Year 2026-2027 budget meetings, and whether this process lends itself to an open evaluation of proposals.
Despite these concerns, several organizations were interested in submitting proposals and believed they have the experience and expertise to conduct a deliberative civic assembly process within the City’s budget.
The City received additional proposals from the following organizations:
• National Civic League
• Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford University
• Center for New Democratic Processes
• Unify America
National Civic League
The mission of the National Civic League (the League) is to advance civic engagement to create equitable, thriving communities. In 2024, the League incorporated Civic Genius, an organization that promotes and assists assemblies, as a project of the League. The League is currently organizing two civic assemblies in Raleigh, NC and Snohomish County, WA.
The League submitted a proposal to conduct an assembly with 20 participants at a cost of $163,000 if the panel participants are to observe the City’s Fiscal Year 2026-2027 budget process and $150,000 without budget process observation.
The League also submitted an alternative proposal to address the question of how to engage the public in the public process. In this alternative, the League proposed to assist the City conduct a “Better Public Meetings” process that would take place over the course of 6 months at a lower cost with the option of extending the work for an additional fee.
The League’s proposals are provided as Attachment 2.
Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford University
The Deliberative Democracy Lab (formerly the Center for Deliberative Democracy), housed within the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, is devoted to research about democracy and public opinion obtained through Deliberative Polling®. Deliberative Polling is a methodology of public engagement that aims to provide a more informed and considered view of public opinion on complex policy issues. The key aspects of deliberative polling are included in their proposal. The Deliberative Democracy Lab conducted the America in One Room projects in 2019 and 2021, and the country of Mongolia currently uses Deliberative Polling.
The Deliberative Democracy Lab submitted a proposal to conduct a deliberative poll with 200 participants to be engaged in three online deliberations and one in-person deliberation at a cost of $249,800 including the City’s costs which are estimated to be $20,000.
Deliberative Democracy Lab’s proposal is provided as Attachment 3.
Center for New Democratic Processes
The Center for New Democratic Processes (CNDP) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civic engagement and research organization. The CNDP has been conducting engagement initiatives for over 50 years. The CNDP’s primary approach to deliberative public engagement is the Citizens' Jury or Citizens' Assembly, and, at the same time, CNDP is continuously designing, testing, and exploring new methods of rigorous, inclusive engagement. CNDP has partnered with local governments to conduct over 30 citizens’ juries and civic assemblies in the U.S. CNDP has designed and implemented civic engagement projects that address budgetary concerns and conducted focus groups on improving public engagement and participation in the municipal budget process for the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA).
CNDP submitted an expression of interest and statement of qualifications which included a tentative budget estimate based on a six-day Civic Assembly event with 20 participants at a cost of $229,280 including $15,000 of City costs.
CNDP expression of interest and statement of qualification is provided as Attachment 4.
Unify America
Unify America’s mission is to replace political fighting with collaborative problem-solving. Unify America seeks to create experiences that reduce political polarization, teach critical civic skills, and give people across the country a chance to make their voices heard. Unify America has been working with the community of Montrose, Colorado to conduct civic assemblies.
Staff was unable to connect with Unify America until shortly before staff reports were due. Unify America expressed interest in submitting a proposal but, unfortunately, did not have sufficient time to put a Culver City-specific proposal together. In an effort to express their interest and qualifications, Unify America has provided the City with a sample scope and budget to conduct a civic assembly with 60 participants and 6 deliberative sessions which includes other tasks such as technical guidance and project evaluation not currently contemplated by the City. The sample proposal also includes a separate scope and budget for capacity and coalition building costs to train and educate local people about assemblies which is also not currently contemplated by the City.
Unify America’s sample proposal is provided as Attachment 5.Federation for Innovation in Democracy North America
In addition to speaking with organizations that are practitioners of civic assemblies and similar deliberative processes, staff also spoke with representatives from the Federation for Innovation in Democracy North America (FIDE North America). According to its website, FIDE is “dedicated to strengthening the democratic system with consequential Citizens' Assemblies. We provide technical guidance, build deliberative capacity, and develop best practices through a rigorous learning agenda.”
FIDE is not an implementor of civic assemblies and positions itself more as a technical advisor and evaluator of civic assemblies. FIDE’s Citizens’ Assemblies - An introduction to definitions and guidelines is provided as Attachment 6.
Based on best practices and lessons they have learned over the past several years, they stressed the importance of taking time to deliberate and thoughtfully design the citizens' assembly. The objectives of assemblies (per FIDE's Theory of Change) are for these processes to be impactful for the assembly members, the communities they serve and result in policy impact, greater legitimacy and enhanced trust. To achieve these goals, several key components need meaningful dialogue and workshopping with stakeholders inside and outside government including the remit (the question put before an assembly), the number of residents and inclusion/representativeness, learning, facilitation, and reporting - how and where recommendations will land in the policy process. FIDE - North America recommended the City conduct a request for proposals (potentially one for the broader design aspects and another related one for the facilitation) and encouraged the City to build its own muscles to be able to implement future assemblies in-house.
Summary of Proposals
All the proposals received are attached for Council consideration. Given the timeframe, staff has not had a chance to thoroughly review the proposals, discuss the proposals with the organizations, or evaluate the proposals. Therefore, staff does not have enough information to provide a recommendation to Council at this time. Council may want to consider creating a Council ad hoc subcommittee to review the proposals and interview the organizations to learn more about their expertise and approach or provide other direction to the City Manager regarding the procurement process for the civic assembly.
Please note this report is intended to convey the proposals received in the time allotted as requested by the City Council. The organizations staff was able to connect with were asked to provide proposals and/or qualifications and draft budgets that could be presented to Council. They were not asked to present to Council or be present at the November 10 City Council Meeting.
Ad Hoc Subcommittee
Council may want to consider creating an ad hoc committee to evaluate the information received, solicit additional proposals if desired, conduct interviews, evaluate proposals and make a recommendation to the City Council. An ad hoc subcommittee could be more nimble in its approach to interviews and evaluations as it designed for to be used for temporary purposes around a specific issue and as such it is not subject to Brown Act requirements for public meetings.
Brown Act Considerations
As described by the various facilitators staff has consulted, the goal of a civic assembly is to create a space for a group of people to have frank and open conversations and have operated civic assemblies in a manner that does not fall within the definition of a legislative body under the Brown Act. If that is also the desire of the City Council, the City Attorney’s Office recommends the Council consider setting up the agreement with the civic assembly facilitator in a way that does not create a legislative body that is bound by the Brown Act as described below.
The Brown Act applies to legislative bodies that are directly appointed by the City Council or created by formal action of the City Council. Therefore, the individual membership of the civic assembly should not be appointed, approved or ratified by the City Council. Rather, the civic assembly facilitator would be given the ability to create the civic assembly and select the members based on a lottery. This would distinguish the civic assembly from a commission, board or committee, which are created by formal action of the City Council and directly appointed by the City Council.
The City of Petaluma conducted a civic assembly in 2021 to provide input on the future use of the Petaluma Fairgrounds. Petaluma structured the civic assembly so that it would not be a Brown Act legislative body by ensuring that the City Council did not appoint the members or create the civic assembly as a subsidiary body of the City Council. The civic assembly in Petaluma was created by a lottery system and was administered by the civic assembly facilitator. Once the civic assembly reached their conclusion, they presented their report to the City Council at a City Council meeting. The City Council subsequently publicly considered whether to include any of the civic assembly’s recommendations in its planning for the Petaluma Fairgrounds.
Next Steps
Regardless of the organization the City Council ultimately selects for this project, staff will return to Council to discuss and approve the demographic criteria for the civic assembly participants and other aspects of the assembly scope.
FISCAL ANALYSIS
The Adopted Budget for Fiscal Year 2025-2026 includes $250,000 for budget outreach consultant services in Account No. 10114100.619800 (Finance Administration - Other Contractual Services) that could be used to hire an organization to conduct a civic assembly and to cover other costs related to the civic assembly process such as third-party audio-visual services, advertising and part-time staffing at City’s facilities. City staff time necessary to support the process is not included in the $250,000.
ATTACHMENTS
1. 2025-11-10 ATT 1 Proposal from Healthy Democracy
2. 2025-11-10 ATT 2 Proposal from the National Civic League
3. 2025-11-10 ATT 3 Proposal from Deliberative Democracy Lab
4. 2025-11-10 ATT 4 Expression of Interest and Statement of Qualification from Center for New Democratic Processes
5. 2025-11-10 ATT 5 Sample Proposal from Unify America
6. 2025-11-10 ATT 6 FIDE’s Citizens’ Assemblies - An introduction to definitions and guidelines
MOTION
That the City Council:
1. Receive an update of staff’s efforts to solicit proposals to develop and conduct a civic assembly;
2. Discuss the proposals received from consultants;
3. (If desired) create an ad hoc subcommittee and appoint Council Members thereto, to evaluate the proposals and make a recommendation to City Council;
4. (If desired) approve a professional services agreement with a consultant to develop and conduct a civic assembly;
5. (If desired) authorize the City Attorney to review/prepare the necessary documents;
6. (If desired) authorize the City Manager to execute such documents on behalf of the City;
7. Provide other direction to the City Manager as deemed appropriate.