Burns missed the mark on City’s contract compliance efforts

By Donald W.R. Allen, II
Guest Commentator
 
After reading last week’s interview with Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) Contract Compliance Manager Johnny Burns in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder [“Are Blacks getting jobs on the Schubert Theater project?”], I became a little concerned about Mr. Burns’ limited-to-no-involvement on several major City of Minneapolis projects. For the most part, not one time did Mr. Burns personally visit or complete a spot check on these projects, and no reports can be found or presented.

In 2009, Mr. Burns informed me in a meeting that regardless of who the prime contractor is, all they had to do to qualify to do business with the City was have a certificate from the State of Minnesota confirming that the prime contractor had an Affirmative Action Plan.

It seems that rather than concentrating on inner-office relationships, Mr. Burns should understand the true meaning of a “good faith effort” and how a “good faith effort” has not worked in over 18 years for some Minnesota agencies with a budget five times the size of little Mini-hope-less.  

In 2009, if the MDCR contract compliance unit were truly engaging the prime contractors, the Hiawatha Maintenance Faculty would have had SUBP (Small and Under-used Business Program) goals assigned before the Minneapolis City Council approved the contract.

The Schubert Theater is just one of many instances where, had someone else not raised the issue about contract compliance (or a lack thereof), the project would have slipped away into noncompliance purgatory, creating more missed opportunities for not only people of color, but for future generations of entrepreneurs who might see value doing business here in the cold Jim Crow. 

Furthermore, Mr. Burns misses the mark and the points made in the executive summary of the 2010 Disparity Report. It reads, “Minorities and women earn substantially and significantly less than their non-minority male counterparts. Such disparities are symptoms of discrimination in the labor force that, in addition to its direct effect on workers, reduce the future availability of M/WBEs by stifling opportunities for minorities and women to progress through precisely those internal labor markets and occupational hierarchies that are most likely to lead to entrepreneurial opportunities.

These disparities reflect more than mere ‘societal discrimination’ because they demonstrate the nexus between discrimination in the job market and reduced entrepreneurial opportunities for minorities and women.”

Mr. Burns was correct in saying that the MDCR as a whole was not doing anything between 2003-2007. Upon his (Burns’) arrival in 2008, the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights was one of the most nonfunctioning departments in the City of Minneapolis — like it is today.

While City employees who are tasked to enforce and uphold compliance enforcement and Minneapolis ordinances work in a “cushy job,” not a whisper is made when CPED (Community Planning and Economic Development) bypasses the SUBP goals and the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights altogether. But that’s what happens when there is no Black consciousness in people who have the pigmentation of being Black but operate under the guidelines of a political plantation. 

There’s not a place where Mr. Burns or MDCR Director Velma Korbel can show a 100-percent improvement in minority numbers when the department has had its own list of dirty laundry that has cost the taxpayers of Minneapolis time, money and human assets. (Unless you consider long lunches, moonlighting by some staff attempting to break into the entertainment business, and the over-friendly engagement with the new female Civil Rights Commission appointees as being 100 percent).

In the last part of the interview, Mr. Burns talks about a “two-stick” approach against contactors who are not in compliance. It would be very interesting to see how many times Mr. Burns has waved his big stick — maybe we can start with Veit.

If Mr. Burns has truly been personally responsible for contract compliance and DBE review of over $750,000,000 worth of federal contracts, including the light rail projects in 2007, why is it still the case that so few people of color are getting jobs in 2011?

 Please help me understand.

Donald W.R. Allen, II is the editor in chief of IBNN NEWS and USA Radical Black. He welcomes reader responses to ibnnnews@gmail.com.