Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 31, 1995 TAG: 9503310058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The project owners - Virginia Tech and the city of Roanoke - should have taken ``a stronger initiative'' to assure greater participation by blacks, the Minority Business Network said in a statement Thursday.
The network was formed in the fall of 1993 to push for a higher profile for black businesses, and it has played watchdog over the $42 million hotel project, which opens Monday. The group has an active mailing list of about 45 businesses within a 100-mile radius of Roanoke, said its president, Herb Chappelle.
It is the belief of network members that participation by minorities and women will end up ``significantly below'' the city's goal of 9 percent, the statement said. The group also questioned the legality of a $3 million contract awarded to a Roanoke Valley minority contractor.
In reaction, Brian Wishneff, acting director of the Hotel Roanoke Conference Center Commission, said he was ``disappointed'' by the network's conclusions.
When final accounting is done, participation by minorities and women should be ``somewhere between 10 and 15 percent,'' Wishneff said.
Also, he said, network members are wrong in asserting that a $3 million contract awarded to Property Maintenance Corp. of Salem did not meet criteria for a minority contract because PMC employees did not do 25 percent of the work.
The 25 percent rule applies to contracts made by the federal government but not to projects that use federal money, Wishneff said.
Financing for the hotel renovation includes a $6 million loan from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
``The regulation is totally irrelevant to this project,'' he said. ``We have gone to extraordinary steps on this project to try to gain as much local and minority participation as possible.''
To encourage minority involvement, the commission hired Alvin Nash, a black executive with Total Action Against Poverty, to seek out minority contractors, Wishneff said. Also, Doubletree Hotels Corp., which is managing the hotel and conference center, was asked to change its tradition of buying from national vendors and involve more area businesses.
``There are a lot of manufacturers in Virginia in this project that wouldn't have even been considered'' if not for the city's and Tech's efforts to bolster the roles of blacks and women, he said.
``We had public sessions, had counseling sessions, publicized it unbelievably and put pressure on all parties involved to do what was done,'' Wishneff said. ``I don't think there's a project anywhere that has gone to a higher effort than the one here.''
Network members met many times with city and Tech officials and with Nash to discuss how to get more minorities involved, but the process didn't go as the group had expected, said Chappelle, owner of Century Sales Inc., a Roanoke County kitchen equipment distributor.
``Part of the responsibility of Alvin Nash was to sit down with us, and we were to give him some specifics in terms of who in the organization or who we knew in the minority vendor community could do certain parts of that hotel and conference center project,'' he said. ``Nash never followed through, and we never got to that point.
``We thought during that process we'd get to make some offers and he would take a package forward. Well, that never happened.''
The contract awarded to minority contractor Ken Haley, president of Property Maintenance, was the result of Nash's involvement. Haley got a Class A contractor's license to become eligible as a subcontractor on the project. He was brought in to oversee $3 million worth of work, but he confirmed that his company actually had 15 percent of the contract. The rest went to contractors pre-selected to help him do the work.
While he disagreed with the network's statement, Haley said he considers the group's role to be important and ``more necessary than ever before,'' now that affirmative action is being questioned.
He and Nash quit attending network meetings when Haley got the contract, but Haley said he will return to the group when he has time.
``I still consider myself a member,'' he said.
The minority group knew it might be taking an unpopular position when it issued its statement, Chappelle said.
``Whenever you take a stand on anything, there may be some negative fallout, but [the Minority Business Network] feels so strongly about this situation,'' he said. ``We weren't worried about our generation, but those behind us.''
by CNB