Tag: Proposition 209

Downtown Oakland will be the new headquarters for BART, which has partnered with Turner Construction Co., is engaging Black-owned business and contractors, including Red Dipper Electric and Metro Contract Group and putting fissures in the Black shutout.

Does California have a “legacy of unequal treatment” of minorities and women? That’s language from Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 (ACA-5) introduced by Assemblymember Dr. Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, and Assemblymember Mike Gipson, D-Carson.

“This elimination of equal opportunity for minorities and women and the total demise of Black contracting in the state has gone on far too long. We must repeal Prop 209!” – San Francisco African American Chamber of Commerce Chair Frederick Jordan

On Jan. 19, 2017, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx approved a waiver of U.S. Department of Transportation regulations to allow the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) to provide group-specific race-conscious DBE contract goals for firms owned and controlled by women and African Americans. This was in response to the lack of participation of women and African Americans on SFMTA projects.

If President Trump’s $1 trillion plan materializes in some shape, form or fashion, highly capable Black contractors will be virtually shut out of public sector contracting as they were during George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s administrations. Qualified Black-owned businesses received a disproportionate sliver of federal stimulus contracts, creating a rising chorus of demands for President Barack Obama’s administration to be more inclusive and more closely track who receives government-financed work, which they did not.

California’s minority and women business enterprises (MWBEs) have lost the potential equivalent of $1 billion in public contracts because of Proposition 209, according to a report by the Equal Justice Society. EJS released the report Feb. 24 during an informational hearing by the California State Assembly Committee on Judiciary. The hearing also heard other testimony related to the impact of Proposition 209 on public contracting.

For true self-determination, we must each play our part. If you are not a member of the NAACP, consider becoming one. If you are already a member, resolve to serve as a volunteer, if not an officer or committee member. Attend a meeting and bring a friend or family member. Not a joiner? Donate to fund initiatives. Do your part to support an organization that has sustained us and defended us for so long.

“We must leverage our athletic success for economic development in our community,” says Magic Johnson. Everett L. Glenn, president of the National Sports Authority, a division of ESP Education & Leadership Institute, is applying that principle to construction of the 49ers’ new stadium under construction in Santa Clara.

WBOK has come back strong from the severe damage inflicted on its studio, offices, transmitter site and broadcast tower by the flooding in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Now broadcasting over a powerful signal, the station adopted a Black talk format - "Real Talk for Real Times" - on Nov. 1, 2007, after it was purchased and upgraded by Danny Bakewell Sr. on behalf of the Bakewell family.

My call last month for an end to the lockout of Blacks from construction is catching fire. This month, let's get some work! Everyone who wants to work construction, pack the BART board meeting Thursday, Jan. 8, 9 a.m., Kaiser Center, Third Floor, 344 20th St., Oakland. Dr. King taught us, "Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability but comes through continuous struggle."