MO/IL DOTs Spark MRB Bridge Diversity Debate

The Missouri and Illinois transportation departments want the federal government to let them set separate contracting goals for including women and minority owned businesses on the new Mississippi River Bridge project.

"When we looked at the availability of minority-owned business to do work for MoDOT and the utilization of those businesses, we found there was a disparity," said Lester Woods, MoDOT's director of external civil rights.

Before they can set separate goals for the involvement of women-owned and minority-owned businesses, however, they have to get the Federal Highway Administration to waive federal regulations that mandate a single contracting goal for "disadvantaged business enterprises," a category that includes both women-owned and minority-owned businesses.

The transportation departments held public hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday to gather public comments to support their application for separate goals for women- and minority-owned businesses. They've also hired Mason Tillman and Associates, Ltd., to prepare a disparity study to justify having separate goals. And they are in a hurry. They aim to submit their request for a waiver on August 1, because they aim to advertise in early September for bids for building the main span of the bridge.

The hearings exposed some simmering tensions between women and minority contractors. Over 200 people attended the hearing on Tuesday.

Women Business Owners were out in force at a public hearing held by the Missouri and Illinois Department of transportation.

Woods said Missouri's record shows a clear disparity in the availability of minority-owned businesses to work with the transportation department and how much they end up being utilized on transportation projects. He said that 62 percent of the businesses in the pool of certified disadvantaged business enterprises in the MoDOT region that includes St. Louis are minority-owned businesses, but they've received only 12 percent of contracts for disadvantaged business enterprises. Businesses owned by women make up 38 percent of the pool, but they have received 88 percent of the disadvantaged business enterprise contracts, he said. (On May 15, 2009, citing a 2004 availability study, MoDOT said that businesses owned by white women made up 65 percent of the construction disadvantaged enterprise pool. Businesses owned by African Americans made up 20 percent of the pool, and businesses owned by Hispanics, Asians, or Native Americans accounted for the rest.)

Women business operators expressed concerns that the process was rigged to take business away from them.

"It seems you're only interested in advocates for minority businesses. Will you be speaking to advocates for women, too," Patty Evansco asked of Eleanor Ramsey, the representative of Mason Tillman.

Evansco, who is secretary of J-C Hauling, a women-owned trucking company in Millstadt, IL, said that if the transportation departments set a goal for women-owned companies that is lower than the amount of work they get now, "we stand to lose business and that could cause a great financial hardship for many women-owned businesses."

But Yusef Haqq, chairman of the Mississippi River Bridge Advisory Committee and spokesman for the African American Business and Contractors Association, said the disadvantaged business enterprise program "is getting hijacked when you see disparity like you see in this district... We're seeking an overhaul of the program."

"Eighty-eight percent and 12 percent does not sound equal, level, or fair," said Yaphett El-Amin, executive director of MOKAN, a minority contractors' association. "We're asking the U.S. Department of Transportation to look at MoDOT and IDOT, and if they find there is discrimination, we're asking them to halt all federal funds to the area until (the transportation departments) remedy discrimination," she added.

The Associated General Contractors (AGC) of St. Louis, with written support from the AGC of America and the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, was the only association to specifically oppose the waiver plan in public.

"We will never support a waiver from federal law. The law is the law," said Leonard Toenjes, president of the AGC of St. Louis. "If they think there is discrimination, they should do a proper study and not rush something through," he said.

"Quotas haven't worked in 40 years, why do they think that if we do more of what doesn't work, it will work now," Toenjes added.

Ramsey explained that the waiver the departments of transportation are seeking is for contracting only, not for workforce participation. MoDOT estimates that the $640 million project will create only a handful of direct construction jobs in Missouri: 18 to build the Missouri approach to the bridge and 63 on the main span of the bridge crossing the river.

Columns