LAWS: GREEN AND I HAVEN'T TALKED AND MANY OF THE COMPLAINTS ARE COMING FROM DISGRUNTLED BUSINESSES!
Over the last two weeks the Insite has reported on how Houston City Councilman Ronald Green has been extremely unhappy with the job done by a fellow city official. Green says it's time for Affirmative Action Director Velma Laws to resign. He claims Laws has not done a good job making sure minorities and women are getting their share of contracts from the city of Houston.
Laws has been the Affirmative Action director with the city of Houston since 2003. She says there is still a great need for the program. But she wanted to make sure the public realizes she's doing her job. That lead to an interview with the Insite by phone on Friday. I wanted to get her side of the story.
In the brief interview Laws said, "most of our efforts here are geared towards providing opportunities for minority and women owned businesses." She said she had the numbers to prove just how vigilant her office has been in ensuring there is inclusion here in Houston.
According to data provided to the Insite, the office of Affirmative Action has awarded more than 18% of the city's contracts to certified minority and women owned businesses. That would translate to $171 million dollars in business for this fiscal year. That's out of $947 million the city has spent on contractors overall.
The question remains is Laws doing enough to ensure minority inclusion? I put that question to her. I also asked why Councilman Green and some others believe she wasn't doing enough for women and minorities. She pointed to disgruntled applicants who have tried to do business with the city.
Her response verbatim...
The Insite: Why are some saying you're not doing enough to help minority and women owned businesses?
Laws: The companies that have had challenges on their initial shots of getting certified.
The Insite: Those who are unhappy with the process are complaining to council members?
Laws: That's what council members say.
The Insite: Have you had a chance to work out your differences with Councilman Green?
Laws: We haven't had a chance to speak but I listen to the information that is debated at the council table and I look at it as the opportunity for me to shed some light and provide some facts.
Laws went on to say those who have problems with the process have a right to appeal her department's decision. She said she even pushed for the city's Contract Compliance Commission. It's an independent body for those businesses who have been rejected. They can go before the group and get a second look.
In the meantime, Laws says she has no plans on leaving the department. But she made it clear she believes in transparency and for those who have concerns there's an appeals process. Also, her door is always open!
Facts:
* 1,449 certified minority and women owned firms able to do business with the COH - up 20% since fiscal 2005
* 550 minority and women owned firms with city contracts - up 27% from fiscal, 2005
* $171 million in city contracts awarded to minority and women owned business - 18.1% of the total city contracts
Source: City of Houston Affirmative Action and Contract Compliance
Here we go again. What we should do is get rid of an affirmative action director position completly.
ReplyDeleteThe best applicant should get the contract, irregardless of their sex or color.
To award any contract based on someones race should be illegal, just as it MUST be illegal if someone is denied a contract based on their race.
I would like to hear an explanation of why you should get a contract over me, both our qualifications being equal, because you're a minority. And don't use that old in the past minorities were denied those contracts. Yes I admit that happened, but this is not the past and YOU were not the person effected.
Insite - I want to first respond to your post, and then to blogger "Tx Bs" comment.
ReplyDeleteThe CoH AA Department should be critiqued, not based upon its form, but upon its substance. In form, it does meet the minimum legal requirements definition for its existence. As a certified firm with the CoH, I personally know that there are very competent people working in the department; and administratively, they get the job done. That is - if the process of getting firms' certified is job 1.
However, when it comes to assisting minority & women owned businesses (MWBEs) in getting contract opportunities, particularly PRIME Contract opportunities; the CoH AA Department falls short. This is where the MWBEs go side-ways. In review of your questions to Director Laws, I don't think you asked all of the right questions. For instance, had you asked the specific question, "Exactly what are MWBEs complaining about regarding your department?" You might have opened Pandora's Box. Most MWBEs believe that the CoH AA Department is deluded into feeling that by getting firms' certified; they are providing a meaningful service.
Yet, the service MWBEs want from the CoH AA Department is assistance with building solid relationships with CoH department personnel and ultimately getting PRIME contract opportunities directly with the CoH. To the contrary, the CoH AA Department acts in the capacity of a compliance score-keeper, with the primary metric of measurement being "the number of firms certified in a give period", vs. being a business development facilitator with metrics like "how many meetings did we setup between department decision makers and MWBEs". In short, "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it - with emphasis on what you are measuring".
As a small business subject-matter expert & evangelist, I have provided a blueprint-brief to the CoH AA Department regarding the above and am available to assist.
Finally, many in the MWBE community believe that CoH AA Department has become more of a political pawn, rather than a point of advocacy for MWBEs; that is, it keeps the natives from becoming restless, by holding and sponsoring countless events that purport desires of Pollyannic proportions - while providing a vegan diet of substantial outcomes. All the while, White-owned firms (if you didn't know, many woman-owned firms are actually fronts foe white-men) continue to get the lion share of department decision maker access and PRIME contracts. Ms. Laws is in a position to point much of this out, yet unfortunately she doesn't; while a very nice person she is simply not an advocate for the MWBE community. Thus, the MWBE community by consensus believes that we need a CHANGE - someone.
This is a good transition point to blogger "Tx Bs" comment:
###
Tx Bs wrote: "To award any contract based on someone's race should be illegal, just as it MUST be illegal if someone is denied a contract based on their race.
I would like to hear an explanation of why you should get a contract over me, both our qualifications being equal, because you're a minority. And don't use that old in the past minorities were denied those contracts. Yes I admit that happened, but this is not the past and YOU were not the person effected."
RESPONSE: I would like to pose the rhetorical response to your question with the following; presuming you are a white-male owned firm; "Why should you continue to get contracts over me, both our qualifications being equal, simply because you have the luxury of institutionalized favoritism on your side"? And don't use that old "I am a good ole' boy" and we once had a monopoly on opportunities in the grand ole south. Yes I admit that happened, but this is not the past and YOU were not the good ole' boy who benefited.
I hope you see how this sword cuts both ways.
Yet, you and I both know that despite this being a different time and space, there is a residual effect of yesterday; just like when you turn on the gas without a flame - wait a minute, and turn it off... you still smell the gas for an extended period even though you can't see it.
I have had too many of white-male colleagues tell me that they know the game, how to benefit from the gas having been turned on - the ethers soaked into the fabric of society and the confidence of it being invisible and virtually undetectable... except the faint smell. You know what it is...
Tx Bs, I am a proud capitalist, and would like nothing better than to compete with you mono e mono; however, you I both know that you don't really want that. If by chance you REALLY do, then rally with me to get more minority firms into your good ole' boy group, come team with me on the projects that you get by virtue of your legacy connections to rural Texas - and don't just share your veggies, give me some meat! I will reciprocate and we can all eat.
But, let's not insult each other intelligence by acting like we don't smell gas in the room... you know what it is.
- Rudy Sutherland
Entrepreneur & Small Business Evangelist
281.841.8444
Excuses, excuses...
ReplyDeleteALL "affirmative action"..i.e. contracts based on race of sex
should be abolished. Sorry,
you can't have your cake and eat
it too, Rudy.
Either we separate people people by their skin color or we don't. You
ReplyDeleteneed to make up your mind. Can't have it both ways.
Im all for abolishing the office and just using the money to provide assistance to ALL business who are having trouble competing for contracts to have a resource to get the EDUCATION needed.
ReplyDeleteIts just seems to me a little idealistic to guarantee certain sectors of our society GUARANTEED contracts.
Maybe there should be a law also MAKING all of us do business one of these establishments at least once a year like Christmas
My answer is that the better candidate/company should get the job/contract. No Matter Who The Candidate Is!
ReplyDeleteWhen the better candidate does not get the job, what we need to follow that up with is better enforcement to punish those who violate the law; those who put race before qualifications.
If you and I owned two competing companies and we were up for the same contract, and your company was the better choice; based on price, services offered, or qualifications, I would support you getting the contract 100%!
For you to use race to get that same contract, because back in the 'olden' days' someone did not get a contract based on their race, does not solve the problem. The problem that should be faced is racism in the here and now.
If there are not enough minority firms in good ole' boy group, then the issue that needs fixing are the good ole' boy groups, and that's only done through enforcement. The answer is not by stacking the deck, because that just allows the good ole boy network to flourish and to award contracts to possibly less qualified candidates.
True capitalism demands the best person or company to be winner, anything less shortchanges the customer(taxpayer) by a giving a job or contract to someone that may not as perform as well, cost more or take too long.
Where I will support you is in the arrest and prosecution of anyone who uses race, and not qualifications, as a factor in awarding a job or contract.
usa1, all of your arguments would be great if we lived in a society that does not judge people on the basis of their skin. say what you want, but just because overt signs of racism have virtually disappeared from the mainstream does not mean that it does not exist deep down in folks minds and hearts. there is a good ole boy system until that system is broken, there will present the need for some sort of affirmative action. sorry bro, it is what it is.
ReplyDeleteExcuses, excuses...
ReplyDelete