Marin Clean Energy (MCE), a California Joint Powers Authority serving over 600,000 customer accounts across Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, and Solano counties, seeks qualified consultants to assess MCE's governance structure and practices and develop recommendations based on findings. MCE was founded in 2008 and launched service in 2010 as California's first Community Choice Aggregation program. As of 2026, MCE is celebrating 16 years of operations, and the MCE Board has recommended a comprehensive governance assessment to identify existing best practices, barriers, and gaps to continue improving MCE's ability to achieve its mission, vision, and priorities.
The scope of work includes gathering input from board members, board committees, staff, key stakeholders, and relevant external benchmarks. Consultants will evaluate governance components including board structure, processes, people, resources, and operating culture. The assessment will evaluate communication protocols between board and staff, identify governing constraints (legal, political, representational), and develop findings and recommendations by identifying strengths, gaps, and actionable opportunities for improvement. The consultant will engage the board in reviewing preliminary findings and shaping recommendations prior to presentation to the full board, and deliver findings that include comprehensive evaluation, implementation considerations, and a clear action plan. Consultants may propose a phased approach with planned phases and associated time and costs. An optional second phase may include an overall organizational review of the agency to examine structure and internal governance, with separate cost and timeline outlined.
Key dates include a question submission deadline of April 15, 2026 at 4:00pm PDT, MCE responses to questions due by April 27, 2026, and the proposal submission deadline of April 30, 2026 at 4:00pm PDT. The contractor selection process is anticipated to be completed by June 30, 2026. MCE's board comprises 34 board members representing 38 member communities, with three standing committees: Executive Committee, Finance Committee, and Technical Committee.
Proposals must include introduction/cover sheet, examples of similar work with public agencies, proposed work plan and timeline, pricing, information and resources required from MCE, statement of qualifications with relevant licenses and certifications, breakdown of proposed labor hours identifying consultant and subcontractor portions, three business references, and review of MCE's Standard Form Agreement with any requested contract term deviations clearly identified.