Arlington spends less than 1% on Black-owned businesses, despite equity efforts
Some Arlington City Council members are frustrated that Black business owners still receive less than 1% of city contract dollars, despite city government efforts to create more equitable application processes.
At-large council members Barbara Odom-Wesley and Ruby Faye Woolridge for months have raised questions about efforts to find and encourage businesses to compete for city projects, as well as considerations made in competitive processes. Leaders in March raised the city’s goals for contract spending from 25% to 30%. The city recently formed the Office of Business Diversity, which is tasked with reducing barriers facing non-white and woman-owned businesses. Both changes fall in line with recommendations from the city’s Unity Council Report and disparity study, both of which called for stronger programs centered on equity.
Still, the city has awarded less than 1% of contract dollars to Black and African American businesses, a total of $635,835 so far this year of the more than $26 million awarded to minority- and women-owned businesses. The numbers remain a sticking point for both council members.
“Contractors feel frustrated,” Woolridge said. “They don’t think that they can get anywhere with the city of Arlington, and so some of them have given up, and they’re dealing with different cities.”
A disparity study completed last fall found that Black- and Native American-owned businesses were disproportionately passed over for contracts. Comparatively, the city’s spending on non-white- and women-owned contractors centered on businesses owned by Asians and white women. City government met its overall goal in Fiscal 2020 of spending a quarter of contract dollars on nonwhite- and women-owned businesses.
Odom-Wesley said the use of Black businesses has increased since she took office in 2018, but the city must make more of an effort to engage with diverse business owners.
“We have to be much more intentional about identifying, recruiting and giving these businesses an opportunity to work in Arlington,” she said.
City Manager Trey Yelverton said during a Nov. 9 council meeting that the city was “being intentional” about increasing the amount of contracts awarded to Black- and African American-owned businesses.
Yelverton’s comments followed council discussion about the contract award process to build the active adult center for residents 55 and up. Voters approved bond funding for the project in 2017. The city selected Manhattan Construction Company for contract negotiations out of five finalists, including Con-Real, a Black-owned business, and Byrne Construction Services, a Hispanic-owned group.
“I’m disappointed in this case,” Yelverton said. “There’s not a staff person in this room who wouldn’t tell you that that’s a disappointment that it didn’t work out in this case.”
However, he added, race and gender makeup of businesses cannot factor into contract decisions; rather, programs must focus on leveling the playing field for all businesses.
Other council members and Mayor Jim Ross said the city must move on with the adult center construction after years of delays.
“Listen, I would have loved Con-Real to have been up there,” Ross said. “I just would have. But to do something different now to start that bidding process all over again really belabors the fact that we’ve had to continue this thing for god knows how long.”
Council that evening asked city government staff to seek more bids on a contract for maintenance and inspection of fire alarm systems and extinguishers.
Odom-Wesley also lamented a missed opportunity in the decision to award a contract to a white-owned business for a public sculpture project commemorating Arlington’s historic mineral well that was torn down in 1951.
“We know that we are not meeting our MWBE goals,” she said. “Until we start an intentional effort, contract by contract, to award some of these contracts to MWBE firms, then we’re not going to change that number, which is less than 1%, and that is unacceptable.”
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 1:08 PM.
