HOUSTON CONTRACTING

By Bobby E Mills, PhD
From – https://aframnews.com/
Reprinted – by Texas Metro News

Is there economic justice in the City of Houston’s prime contracting processes?  e City of Houston has never had an inclusive diverse system of awarding contracts. No doubt about it, former Mayor Lee P. Brown was Houston’s most inclusive multi-cultural leader in the past   y years. Mayor Brown’s Atlanta experience was the national role model for Blacks businesses being included in contracting opportunities. God has said: “Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.”

(Deuteronomy 28: 6). Evidently, the City of Houston does not believe in the principle of an open-door contracting business policy. Blacks are the largest voting bloc in the city of Houston, even though Hispanics represent the largest minority group in the city. Houston has become a minority-majority city. Former Senator Whitmire is Mayor of Houston primarily because a large percentage of Blacks voted for him. Yet, why is it so difficult for Black professionals to secure a meeting with the mayor to discuss community-neighborhood developmental needs?  This issue is not totally Mayor Whitmire’s fault, because the developmental needs of the Black community should have been discussed prior to the election. Professional Engineering Firms, Accounting Firms, Construction Management, and Inspection professionals have been locked out and ignored far too long by former mayors.

Adding insult to injury, when these  firms are successful their fees are dictated at much lower levels than their counterparts for the same services. For example, take a Black Engineering  rm that receives a contract for multiple projects, and then they are assigned only one project under that contract, while other  firms receive 5,10, or 20 projects under their contract. Another important issue is the contract value of similar costs of a $14,000,000 project awarded while the Black  rm receives a management fee of $600,000, and majority  firms receive a management fee of $840,000 for the same level of effort and scope of work.  This is grossly unfair by any assessment standards.  These are only a few of the issues encountered by qualified Black professionals.

Lee P. Brown was the Godly exception, because of his inclusive developmental experience in the city of Atlanta. Mayor Brown was an integral part of Atlanta’s ability to include rather than exclude Black contractors. Houston is a much more diverse city ethnically, culturally, and economically than Atlanta.  Therefore, Houston with its unlimited capabilities ought to be more inclusive and productive than Atlanta. However, isn’t it a strange twist of events that most professional politicians in Texas, and especially in the city of Houston become wealthy while in office, and at the same time, infrastructure, and community developmental needs in the Black community primarily remain stagnant and unchanged. Moreover, at the same time, neither do most Black professionals experience upward social mobility.

Hence, the lack of business developmental contracting opportunities is having rippling effects on quality-oflife issues at every socio-economic level in the Black community. Once again, Blacks are the largest voting bloc in the city of Houston. Yet, at the same time, Black contractors receive minimal city prime contract ing opportunities, even though there are many who are highly qualified, capable, and successful Black contracting-engineering  rms.  The question is why does this socio-economic set of circumstances exist? More importantly, how can it be equitably corrected?  The answer to the question does not lie in rescuing minority contracting opportunities, but in equitably redistributing prime contracts and sub-contractors that traditionally go to majority contractors. Since we spiritually understand the impediments to resolving the problem of equity and socio-economic fairness in contracting opportunities, God’s word gives us the answer to fairly resolving the issue: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be  filled.” (Matthew 5: 6).  The first individual that is critical of this editorial is without a doubt, a Judas Goat!  e Black business community needs to have a come to city contracting meeting with Mayor Whitmire, because the Black community should be respected, and Black contractors deserve better than what they are receiving. Selah.