Baltimore City hails progress on minority jobs

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Mar 22, 2005 by Jen DeGregorio

Valerie Smith, president of Halethorpe-based V & S Contractors Inc., said her company's business has doubled since Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley took office in 2000.

Smith, whose company does construction work in Baltimore, attributes that success to the mayor's focus on promoting minority- and women-owned businesses.

Mayor O'Malley, you've made a believer out of me, Smith said yesterday at a news conference he held to announce that the city nearly doubled its contract awards to minority- and women-owned businesses since 2000.

In 2004 the city paid $83.1 million to minority- and women-owned businesses. That's 30 percent of the $276.8 million of eligible contract awards,.

That figure - while short of the city's goal of awarding 35 percent of contracts to minority-and-women-owned businesses - is a far cry from the $44.7 million awarded to those businesses in 2000.

Twenty-four of 45 Baltimore Development Corp. projects receiving city support included minority ownership, the city said. Payment for those jobs came to $815 million, or 72 percent of the total investment for all BDC projects in 2004.

The city also saw a 15-fold increase in the amount of money included in Minority Business Enterprises subcontracts at the Department of Housing and Community Development, rising from $834,857 in 2000 to $12.8 million in 2004.

This has been something very, very important to our administration from the first day, O'Malley said. Our city, more than any other city, I believe, can prove the strides we're making in minority-owned businesses.

Although 69 percent of Baltimore's population is composed of minorities, the city's development projects have been historically controlled by white-owned companies.

But that is changing. Major city projects - such as Lockwood Place office building on East Pratt Street being built by Baltimore- based A&R Development, or the Moore's Run storm-drain improvement project near Belair Road being built by Smith's company - now include a greater share of minority- and women-owned businesses.

Pat Frazier, business coordinator of the Maryland-Washington Minority Contractors Association, said the minority business community has been thrilled with the progress in Baltimore.

When you call the minority business office, they're right there answering the phone, and they've been nothing but receptive to us, she said.

Samuel J. Lloyd, director of the Mayor's Office of Minority Business Development, said the agency was established in 2001 to help minority businesses break into close-knit business circles.

The office levels the playing field, he said, soliciting lesser- known contractors for projects.

We connect people with opportunity, Lloyd said. We help people find the information they need to compete for opportunity. We're facilitators - and the objective is to facilitate the equity of wealth in the community.

Frazier agreed with Lloyd's assessment.

These are things that minority businesses never had access to before. And, I hate to say it, but not every area in the state of Maryland is like that, she said.

Next up for the Office of Minority Business Development is facilitating a better relationship between minority- and women- owned firms with non-minority businesses, Lloyd said.

Our focus is now going to be to have joint partnerships, he said.