Convention hit over minority contracts
Organizers of the Democratic National Convention are again being accused of not sending enough business to Boston's minority communities, and activists are threatening to find ways to embarrass Mayor Thomas M. Menino and national Democrats in the run-up to the convention if they don't see the situation turn around.
City Councilor Chuck Turner yesterday sent a letter to Menino, calling on the Boston 2004 convention host committee that Menino is leading to make specific commitments regarding the awarding of contracts to minority-owned businesses. He said local business owners are in danger of being cut out of the lucrative planning and catering of parties for delegates, and of opportunities to sell convention-related T-shirts and other merchandise.
"This is an opportunity for Boston to show progress," Turner said at a press conference yesterday in City Hall, where he was joined by several black community leaders and aides representing two of his council colleagues, Charles C. Yancey and Felix D. Arroyo. "Unfortunately, the unresponsive, dismissive attitude of the host committee leadership is reminding us that while times have changed, attitudes seem to remain mired in the past."
Turner and a group of minority activists, called the Umoja Coalition, are calling for at least 35 percent of convention contracts to go to Boston-based businesses owned by people of color. But the host committee is saying that it can't commit to such thresholds, and its leaders point out that they are defining diversity more broadly than through race.
Boston 2004 requires party-planning subcontracts to go through companies in the "vendor directory" they have put together. Only companies that are owned by minorities, women, people with disabilities, or that are certified by the city as small and locally owned can be listed in that directory, said Karen Grant, a spokeswoman for the host committee.
David Passafaro, the host committee's president, said Menino has directed the host committee to spread the economic benefits of the convention throughout the city's neighborhoods. All businesses, he said, have had "fair, open, and complete access" to convention-related business.
"We have a very good track record of going out and looking for minority women and small, local-owned businesses," he said. "We have a very good list of companies that have done business with us to date, and there are more to come."
The host committee yesterday released a list of 22 minority-owned businesses that have been awarded 28 separate convention contracts, and the list includes consultants, construction companies, florists, and event planners. Contracts to women- and minority-owned businesses account for 27 percent of the $3.4 million in spending that the host committee has controlled so far, according to numbers provided by Boston 2004.
"It represents a significant segment of discretionary spending, with the prospect of much more of it to come," said Seth Gitell, a Menino spokesman. About $6.5 million of construction costs are still to be spent, and at least half of that sum is expected to go to minority-owned companies.
