Yes. I bidded to Dale. I didn't receive any response from his estimators. I called the office several times. I wrote letters. I eventually saw -- myself and the chairman of our association, Anthony Fullard, was attending a Christmas party with one of the associations here in the city, and Mr. Eric Litner, the president of Dale was there. So I said, Well, Eric, I said, I've been trying to reach out to your estimator. I said, I've submitted bids. I said, I haven't gotten a response. And he told me, he said, you know, Jihad, in this business, I do business with people I like, and I don't like you and I'm not going to do business with you. Now, Michael Bell was there from the Redevelopment Authority, and I said to Michael, Why is it that I got to -- I said a couple other things, but why is it that I have to bend over backwards in order to get work on a public-funded job? Why does 199 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 he have to like me? Why can't it be that I'm --
It was not because your bid was no good, it was not because your bid was deficient, it wasn't because you didn't have the capacity?
You submitted the bid to Dale Construction, or to whom did you submit the bid?
I attempted to submit a bid to Dale, to Eric Litner's estimator. They never returned my phone calls. I sent my bid up there. They never acknowledged it. I faxed it. I called him every day. They never acknowledged my bid. And the project was getting ready to be awarded. So when I saw him at that time, I asked the owner of Dale what was the problem, and that's when he made the comment. He said, I just don't like you.
Did you let anybody 200 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 in the city know about that?
Yeah, I did. In fact, as I stated, Michael Bell, who is the Redevelopment Authority's affirmative MBEC director, I said to him at that party that night, Why is this like this, Michael? What are you going to do about it? And his response to me was, Jihad, you shouldn't have cursed at him. And I said, I should have thrown him out the window, because this is a publicly funded job and he's going to tell me -- my response to Michael was, Whose side are you on? Because if this is a public-funded job, why does he make a statement, I don't like you and I'm not going to do business with you, and what are you going to do about it, and I never got a response from Mike. In fact, I went down to the board of the Redevelopment Authority and I went to the board and I spoke to John Dougherty at the time, and he said that there wasn't nothing that he could do about it.
When was this? It was last year. I have to research the specific date. It was about a year ago. 201 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125
Mr. Chairman, could we write a letter trying to ascertain the events to the Redevelopment Authority on this issue?
Councilman Ortiz, I'm sure that we can get correspondence. I'm going to assume that the party we want to contact is the Dale Construction Company.
And also if you could pull the records from my appearance at the Redevelopment Authority at the board meeting.
Okay. We will send out correspondence to try to get an answer to all this.
But those type of instances are -- and I'm one of the more vocal guys that comes out, and I'm one of the small contractors that's in an organized group. And we used to all contend that part of the thing that made this thing successful, their defeat of our inclusion, was our inability to be organized and our inability to complain to the proper authorities. And that's really what has this thing beat, what has us beaten. But that's why there's so many angry black men and Latino men out there, like the 202 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 previous speaker that came up, Ron, because they're angry because they know that we're being excluded and nobody cares. And before all this stuff started taking effect, we've been to every agency in this city that has responsibility, MBEC, RDA, GPUAC. All those guys have just not -- have failed to do anything about it in a substantial way. And the substantial way is as the previous speaker from Baltimore said, it's to stop the contract and make it a contractual issue. But we have been powerless. And although we're out here fighting, because as you've known, we've testified at every hearing that ever came up we were down here to talk about inclusion every time, every issue, it wasn't until things got to a head and we got the Renaissance Corporation and the help of the elected officials here today that we're about to make a change.
Those activities or those incidents, if you can get other incidents besides yourself but other individuals to write to the chair, to Mr. Nutter, and really send us a series of incidents that have happened to black contractors and other individuals, we would really 203 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 appreciate it. Because as Mr. Corey stated and as the federal court decisions say, we have to establish a record and we need to have a record of past exclusionary practices, and that goes beyond the anecdotal. We need to be able, just like you just did, to have it on record, to have it on testimony and to go forward with it. So if you have other contractors, and, Mr. Small, I know that you can put a whole series of incidents such as those where you have been locked out, if you can do that for us, put it in writing those incidents where different contractors have been shut out in different areas and different projects, we would be very appreciative. And you can send it to Councilman Nutter's office. He's the chairman of the committee.
Anthony Fullard again, my second turn around, African-American Chamber of commerce. I am the chairman. And I would just like to support the Bill 030125, but would just like not to see the same redundancy that we see when we pass bills and when we have something in place to ensure fairness on contracts and also on procurement 204 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 throughout the city. I'm sure that we've seen a whole lot of bills. We've seen a whole lot of things written, but nothing with no teeth in it to ensure that African-Americans and Latinos in the city get their fair due. But, however, we keep saying about the minority this and the minority that, but to our counting, we represent the majority within this city. As far as the counting that the Chamber does and the follow-up work and the research that we do day in and also day out is that there's going to be more work in our communities through the redevelopment of the neighborhoods and of the redevelopment of shopping centers and so on, and we are the majority force in these neighborhoods. But when we stand out there and we see cars pulling up from New Jersey and Delaware and from New York and from, you know, everywhere else but within our own communities, we have a serious, serious problem in this city, and we see this day in and we see this day out. We have contractors that are sitting right here at these hearings right now that have 205 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 taken out their precious time, because it really costs them money to sit here to be here from six or seven hours. And we're not looking for a remedy that's going to start six months from now, a year from now. We have contractors right now that we meet twice a month that need contracts now. I get calls from painters, electricians, sheetrockers that are looking for work right now. And we do our due diligence to ensure that we find those jobs, find out what projects are going on, so that we can at least recommend these guys, but it should be more of a due diligence process with the city. Now, the Chamber wants to be an active member involved in this whole process, because any time -- we had a situation with our contractor at the Phillies stadium and when we got calls that there was nothing else that no one could do for this contract, then somewhere down the line the system that we have in place has --
Broke down. That's right. So whatever bill that we are going to vote on and whatever amendments there are, we're 206 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 going to have to have people and something in place that is going to ensure that the job gets done. Because African-Americans can no longer live in their communities and to continue to not have these jobs, cannot partake of the economic development in their own communities and see people riding in their neighborhoods, ride out of their neighborhoods with the same expertise that they had, and they cannot partake of that economic development. We are not going to sit back and we are not going to allow that kind of practice to go on. We will support these bills, but also we want to ensure that these bills work. We want to ensure that these things are followed through and at the end of the day that we are getting results. What those results are is that we see our businesses that are in that community that are involved on these jobs.
Mr. Fullard, you were here when Mr. Corey spoke, Mr. Crawley and Jihad this morning. You were here when Mr. Corey spoke. They have the law. But like he also said, when he makes a decision to exclude a contractor because they didn't follow the law, there's a big hammer in 207 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 back that says that's it, final. We need to have that hammer in there. He also said that it's not only him, but it's the mayor of the city who has the hammer at the end of the day, and he makes that law effective. There are no waivers. There is no going around the law, because there is a consensus of interest there that says this is the way it's going to happen. So we got to maintain the vigilance that has been begun by you guys, the movement that has been begun by the Roundtable and the African-American contractors and others in the city to maintain and make sure that we have that hammer.
And also I just want to say one thing to you, is that when things happen and this issue that happened at the Phillies with Johnny Dock and Precision, the process of getting things done takes too long. It's unacceptable. Once you have a process in place to ensure that an African-American company that went through his paperwork, it has been approved, so now something broke down. You know, somebody made a call. But now it's supposed to be fixed. It's not fixed. And, again, it's too much process. It's too much 208 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 going back and forth. It's one call. Get it done. That's it. And by the end of the day, I want to see this done.
Mr. Fullard, let me again apologize. I was out of the room for some time, and I appreciate my colleagues, Councilman Ortiz and Councilman Clarke, keeping things going. I think the record needs to also probably reflect that Councilwoman Reynolds-Brown has joined the Committee. I think I would say to you with all seriousness, but you'll appreciate a certain level of facetiousness to this, I think that this issue of inclusion, and I've listened very closely to Mr. Crawley's testimony, the issue of participation, inclusion, increasing the numbers, creating opportunity and the monitoring and the oversight and the compliance, I think we've reached a stage where this issue needs to reach the level of priority that is at least equal to the removal of abandoned cars and the plowing of snow. And I think that as we should be proud, although they are regular governmental services and they are touted as 209 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 examples of the city doing the right thing, I think that this issue at least warrants being somewhere between those two in terms of priority, because, quite honestly, we do those other two things anyway. They're going to happen by the sheer force of the movement of the government. We need to move beyond that and not even talk about that as a regular governmental service, because I don't really worry anymore about whether my trash is going to be picked up on Monday. That's my day. I know they're coming. The only thing I got to worry about is whether I get it down there at the curb by 8 o'clock. I don't worry about my mail being delivered by the postal service. There are things that happen in the normal course of events. This is not one of them. And so the emphasis and the focus and the attention needs to be brought to this particular issue, as it has been brought to others, because we see the result of when the government and when its leaders, all of us included, I'm not singling out anybody, when we are focused on something, you get results. But if we're just going to have legislation, if we're going to have monitoring organizations, I'll 210 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 support them all. I'll assume people are doing the right thing, they're going to work every day. But if there's then no result, we failed. We failed you, we failed in our obligation, and we all have to question ourselves in terms of the oath that we took. So I'm going to say somewhere between abandoned cars and snow removal has to be this issue in terms of priority. Mr. Crawley.
Mr. Chairman, we appreciate that sentiment and we hope that you can get the support of your colleagues and the administration in that regard. It's critically important. I want to get back into some of the administrivia on all of this and go back to 17-505, the participation goals, because that's going to be critically important and we have some concern about that. You've heard the numbers. You've heard the numbers that talk about the level of inclusion as to gross receipts by African-American, Hispanic and Asian businesses over the years. And if we're 211 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 talking about collectively in the construction trades, African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians doing 1.5 percent of the business, then you know that you're not going to have a great base of solid and fully functional African-American, Hispanic and Asian contracting firms, because there's not enough money to go around. The segregation has caused people who wanted to be in that business to go out of business. And so we're always left with the challenge of recreating new African-American, Hispanic and Asian contractors, because all of them are fighting over one and a half percent. So our big problem is that even as you have this well intentioned piece of legislation wound up and ready to go, when you talk about the participation goals that we develop and we based to some specific extent on the present availability of qualified DBEs, then that's going to be a Catch 22. That's going to lock us in over the next five, ten or 15 years to a goal that was a segregated racially oriented goal in the first place. So we can't use that number alone. And commensurate to all of this, there 212 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 ought to be -- and the Chamber and this Roundtable are working on a program that will do some of this, but in a broad sense, as we look at this goal-setting commensurate to this program, we ought to have a program that says we have to do business formation. We have to create and support and nurture African-American, Hispanic and Asian businesses, including in the construction trades, so that we have a greater reservoir of businesses to choose from. Because every time we have this written in as a component of the goal-setting, we're doomed to the minuscule number of businesses we have had. Because African-American people are stupid. If there's no business to be done, they're going to close that business and move to some other industry. So that has to happen. That has to work. And the other concern is with the limitation section, and we would hope you'd reflect on that a bit. When we say that the annual goals must be directly related to the availability of DBEs and the identified disparity in the utilization of DBEs, we want to broaden this. And this DBE 213 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 category again smacks of the old language, it smacks of minority participation and set-asides. And we're talking about the majority of the population. And I don't hear people having to prove that Irish people, that Irish businesses have suffered a disparity so that Irish people can win contracts. We need to not -- we need to say to ourselves it is not necessary to prove that. We have empirical data that clearly indicates that we're not participating in those industries. I don't need to have to wait for a disparity study to have somebody else get a ten-year lead time on developing another disparity study to prove that we have not gotten business. We ought to get business because we are business people who pay taxes, who live in the city and participate fully. This should not be tied to the old, worn habits of people who try to impact minority business utilization. That includes the proof of the disparity study. The disparity has already proven -- I don't think that there's a place for that in this language.
Mr. m. solely for the purpose of action to be taken by this body when we have a quorum. And I know we'll have a quorum on Thursday morning because everybody has got to be here. But what I'm going to suggest in the interim and to the sponsor of the bill is that if the opportunity arises between now and hopefully 8:30 Thursday morning, that you meet and have some discussion about these particular pieces as we start going into Section X and Subsection Y, because that is really where -- that's the heart and soul of what we do here. I mean, words have meaning. And I would encourage you to have that discussion, and the sponsor would then be prepared on Thursday to put forward any amendatory language or any amendments that we can then take action on. It will not slow down the process. It will not impact on the schedule. Even if this bill 215 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 came out of Committee today, it would still only get a first reading next Thursday. If we take care of what we need to do between now and then, we'll recess the hearing until Thursday, it'll come out of the Committee, if there are amendments, with those amendments on Thursday, it'll still get a first reading on Thursday. So, I mean, time is not our enemy here. It's actually our friend. And I think that we can make things better. I made a statement earlier before I left, and your comment was more diplomatic and eloquent than mine, but there was a statement made that we find ourselves in a position where we have to beg and cajole and request and I guess even demand, and what I said was that I've actually been a free person all of my time and that you just reach a certain stage, I think, in life and in this process that I don't know why I have to beg anybody. You know, we're all elected members. We took an oath. They come. When the bills are before us, everybody knows our name. Everybody is interested in having a conversation. We're some of the most popular people in the world. So we vote to provide 216 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 these economic opportunities in many instances for folks who did not have to beg anyone. It is almost as a matter of right. You've been here enough times to know that the economic opportunity plan, the affirmative action plan, call it whatever you want, is always dealt with on the last day of a series of hearings about any big important bill, anything that's a couple hundred million dollars. We're always down at the last minute asking, What about the jobs and what about the contracts and what about this, and they say, Well, we have a preliminary plan now and we're going to work on the rest and we'll approve that later. But, see, the financing for the project is always in place. And who is doing the legal work and who is doing the bomb work and what's PIDC's role and what's pay going to do, all that table is set. So we got the meat, we got the fish, we got the potatoes, we got the carbohydrates, we got the greens and the salad. We're the dessert. Coming up late, at the tail end of the piece, forced in at the end under tremendous pressure and circumstances, and what we are always told, and we certainly had this 217 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 with the stadiums in the middle of the night, if we don't do it now, the whole project will fall apart. That was in December of 2000 at 12:00 midnight when we received the final documents. Members were literally tired and almost falling asleep. I blame no one. It had been a long day. Approve it now. We'll deal with the details later. But we've got to have it now because the deals will fall apart. The documents that we received last week, and we knew this already, the actual final documents on that deal were signed in December 2001, but we were told as a funding source it had to be December 2000. So, I mean, we've been down this road time and time again. When we did Caverna, that was worse.
On the Caverna deal, they said, Well, you know, we've been working on a lot of things, they're very sensitive issues, you can't have any of the documents until after you approve it. Let me say that again. You can't have any of the important serious documents until after you vote. It is so sensitive, it is so critical, there are things being discussed here that you 218 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 cannot know as grown adult human beings, sworn into office, the city charter, the state constitution, the Constitution of the United States, we're smart enough, we're grown enough, we're intelligent enough to stand on the stage every four years in January and take our oath to uphold the law, but we could not see the actual documents until after we had given our vote on the deal. So we've tried to learn from these things. We all voted for it. Did you vote for that?
You didn't vote for that. Councilman didn't vote for that. He has actually a very good voting record on some of these issues. He gets himself a lot of trouble.
Gets himself in a lot of trouble, but that's a whole other story.
Let me tell you something. We also put an amendment at 12:00 midnight to have a living wage for the workers, the ones who clean up, the ones who sell the beers, the ones who sell the hot dogs and so on. Got defeated 219 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 because that would break the contract, it would hold it up.
So I say all that to say we're grown people here, men and women, and this concept of asking for, begging for inclusion, nobody asks me or begs me to pay my taxes. Right? They say pay it. Matter of fact, actually, they don't ask me. They take it. I get the thing every two weeks. It says this is what you made, this is what you get. The stuff in between, we took it out. We didn't ask your permission. That's just the deal. Okay? And ain't nobody saying anything about it. That's the end of that conversation. So I'm saying, let's do these contracts like we do our checks. This is what we're going to give you. This is what you're going to give us. This is what everybody is going to get out of it. Let's not have a whole lot of conversation about it. End of discussion. These are public dollars. In the private business, you do what you do. It would be nice if you do a little bit of this with us and we'll try to push you and encourage you. I actually have a data request. Is there any more testimony? 220 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125
Mr. Nutter, I just wanted to make a final comment. I see that one of the situations that sometimes is an inconvenience is that like if you're African-American, to get on a job you have to be certified. But if you're a white male, any ethnic group, you can just freely bid on the job. You know, I just think that the level field doesn't sound too good there. Why do I have to be certified to get a job? I mean, I don't -- and a white male from any ethnic group, he can just come in out of town, be from anywhere, he can just come in and just bid on the job, and if he's low bid, he can get it. But if I come, I have to meet all kinds of scrutiny, I have to meet all kinds of qualifications. I think that's an issue that we have to deal with.
Councilman Nutter, one other thing was when you had the previous Marla Hamilton up here and when you asked her was it something that you can do and she said no, she's not a lawyer. And I know Marla, but she's part of the administration. And I think that Council, this committee, should take the right to have an outside legal counsel look 221 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 and see if you can still do something on this.
Well, I believe we have options available to us. Any other testimony? Thank you. Commissioner Gamble, can you approach the witness table? I need to ask you for some information. Then we're going to hear from Tyrone. Commissioner, please identify yourself for the record.
Good afternoon. My name is William Gamble, procurement commissioner.
Commissioner, thank you for being here. I did receive a call, and I wanted to put on the record, late last evening, the secretary of financial oversight and director of finance, Ms. Janice Davis, did call me as the chair of the committee to inform me that she would not be able to be with us today because of a previously scheduled engagement. She was on a panel at Masterman High School, and the secretary wishes to express her concern about these issues, as well as a direct request to have an opportunity to work with the sponsor of this bill to see if the administration and the Council can work together on 222 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 these issues. Commissioner, I wanted to ask you -- I know Mr. Roundtree was here earlier. I would like if you could provide to the Committee a listing of the name, address, phone number, person in the leadership position, as well as a general contact person for every union and contractor who has or is presently working on the Eagles and Phillies facilities or stadium and ballpark, the NTI program and those unions and contractors who worked on the Caverna project, as well as the Kimmel Center.
Thank you very much. Please identify yourself for the record.
Mr. Councilman, if you're going to convene Thursday at 9:00, if you wouldn't be a problem -- I don't know if you were planning to take testimony that day or not.
We were not planning to take any testimony. We wanted to complete our testimony. And the primary purpose of recessing to 223 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 Thursday is to take action on the bill.
Okay. First of all, let me say good afternoon to everyone. I would like to start my testimony on a time where back in 1975 --
Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Tyrone Reed, R-E-E-D, and I'm coming to speak to Council today as a citizen from North Philadelphia, resident of North Philadelphia. And I would like to start my testimony on a concept that tried to happen back in 1975 with the Rizzo administration. At the time, the Mayor wanted to do a tri-nad (ph) theory, of which I think it was the housing commissioner, John Gallery, who said that they wanted to just not put any resources into communities that they thought was communities you couldn't do anything with. So at that time, North Philadelphia was not only facing red lining by the banks, insurance company, et cetera, but our local government was also in the process of trying to develop a concept where they too were going to wipe or forget about North Philadelphia. 224 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 It was an all-out attack on North Philadelphia, and one of the primary initiatives in fighting that issue and trying to get people to understand that even though in North Philadelphia we were having a lot of difficulties, we were still Philadelphians. We were still citizens of this City and we lived there. One of our attempts was to get jobs and economic opportunities from the very few developmental activities that was happening at the time. Demonstrating at the work sites, we would temporarily get the attention of the contractors who would placate us by meeting with us and then making many, many promises, of which none of them they would or were planning to keep. Now some 28 years later, we are still begging for economic justice from many unjust individuals. While, Councilmen, I'm not who believes in the process of trying to legislate behavior, nonetheless I do applaud the efforts to force the hands of those who continue to rise still and rape out communities of the much needed resources we must have to survive the perils of our continued economic 225 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 holocaust. The City of Philadelphia has truly stepped to the plate and is focused on neighborhoods revitalization, and we cannot allow the perpetrators of economic genocide to annihilate, weaken, destroy a great opportunity for Philadelphia to make things right for Philadelphians, especially those who are most challenged at these economic times. Therefore, I am here today to wholeheartedly endorse the legislation before us, and, Mr. Chairman -- I see he's not here -- if I can just add to the many voices you have heard today, that enforcement and severe consequences for non-compliance is an absolute must. In closing, ladies and gentlemen, I'm reminded of the mentality of how some very, very evil men tricked and stole people from another land, brought them to this country and enslaved them. And, again, some 400 years later, the slavery continues. We are enslaved when we cannot benefit from the tax dollars that we pay. We are enslaved when we cannot reap any benefits from the developments, the contracts, the services that 226 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 people provide through governmental dollars. And, again, we continue to be enslaved, because we have individuals who have an opportunity to help folks out of the misery that they're in simply by providing a job or an economic opportunity in their communities. These evil men must be banished from a civilized society. The pain, the misery, the hardship they compel our communities to be in must stop and it must stop immediately. Councilman, I don't know why these contractors, these folks that get these public service dollars, do not see the things that are happening in our community. It kind of bothers me that when I walk out my house and I see folks working on a property, whether it is roofing, whether it's plumbing, whether it's an electrician, it doesn't matter. It just seems as though these folks have this industry tied up and they continue to keep it tied up by not letting our folks get an opportunity to make a living. And I'm going to again close with one thing.
Every time a little child is shot by a stray bullet, every time you walk from one block to 227 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 another, you see all these young brothers standing on the corner selling them drugs, you can bet your last dollar the reason a good deal or a great deal of the reason for that is because the folks who have an opportunity to provide these young men with a different way of life have clearly made up their mind that they're not. And I just appreciate --
Thank you. Keep up the struggle. Thank you. Anyone else here to testify?
I have two testimonies of people that had to go, Mr. Philip Chiang, president of the Trans-Pacific Engineering 228 3/21/03 - Commerce - BILL 030125 Corporation has testimony to be included into the record and Mr. George W. Woods. He's not the disk jockey.
President of the U.S. Environmental Management, Incorporated, which is a certified MBE. Their testimony will be incorporated into the record just as the other aspects.
The Chair will direct that that testimony which was received will be entered into the record as if it had been read in its entirety. If there is no one else here to testify, this Committee will stand in recess until Thursday, March 27th at 9 o'clock a.m. Thank you. (Commerce and Economic Development hearing adjourned at 3:05 p.m.) - - - 229 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on March 21, 2003, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)