LOCALS GET A SHOT, BUT NO SURE THING

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 12, 1993                   TAG: 9304120251
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
LOCALS GET A SHOT, BUT NO SURE THING
A PLAN TO encourage local, small and minority-owned businesses to bid on work for the Hotel Roanoke project was unveiled this week by Virginia Tech and Roanoke city officials.
Meanwhile, though, the first two contracts, totaling about $2.3 million for asbestos removal and demolition, are expected to go to an out-of-town firm, either one from Laurel, Md., or one from Richmond. There's nothing wrong with that.
Bids on the first contracts were sought before the plan was in place. Nevertheless, the outcome illustrates an important point: If out-of-towners come in with clearly better offers - in this instance, bids about $700,000 lower than those from local companies - local businesses should not expect to get the work.
The two general contractors on the hotel project are F.N. Thompson of Charlotte and J. M. Turner and Co. of Roanoke. Under the Tech-city plan, the director of small and minority contracting for Thompson has been hired by Renew Roanoke to assist Alvin Nash in identifying and helping local and minority businesses bid for work. Nash, a Roanoker, will be on six-months leave from Total Action Against Poverty to take on the temporary but full-time assignment.
In addition, project officials say they intend, where possible, to break the work into smaller chunks than usual. The idea is to enable small and minority businesses to bid on work that might otherwise be out of their reach.
The plan is a good step. Project officials can expand opportunities for work by local, small and minority-owned companies, and can help ensure that such businesses are aware of the opportunities and the procedures for bidding when the opportunities arise.
The plan does not, however, guarantee success to any bidder - nor should it. All things being equal, of course it would be better to give jobs to local workers who have complained about the out-of-towners that helped build Dominion Tower, and to Roanokers from black neighborhoods suffering high unemployment and heavy impacts from city projects.
We hope local companies will submit the best bids, and that small and minority-owned businesses will be among them. The city's outreach effort should help in this regard.
But if out-of-town firms submit clearly better bids, the work must go to them. To do otherwise would be wasteful, and an affront to those whose contributions have made the hotel project possible - taxpayers among them.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB