Will they or won’t they?
That’s the question being faced by the Guilford County Board of Commissioners at the board’s Thursday, Aug. 6 meeting. Namely, the board will decide whether or not to move forward on several repair and renovation projects that were put on hold in July after the board’s three African-American commissioners raised questions about the low amount of minority participation on the projects.
Guilford County Commissioner Skip Alston, one of the African-Americans on the Board of Commissioners, said this week that, if the commissioners don’t get good answers from the construction companies handling the projects, then the county should not proceed as planned.
Among other work, the projects in High Point include building structure repair and heating and cooling system replacement. Some work will be at the Guilford County Courthouse in High Point with other jobs at the problem-filled county building at 325 E. Russell Ave. that serves as the High Point social services office as well as the tax and register of deeds office in that city.
At the board’s last meeting in mid-July, Alston grilled county facilities and Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises (MWBE) Division staff over the lack of adequate participation of minority businesses. The board was scheduled to approve those projects at the meeting last month, however, the commissioners voted to put the projects on hold in order to get more information.
On Monday, August. 3, Alston said that, after talking with the owners of some black-owned firms that were passed over – or not even considered for subcontracting jobs by the winning bidder – he has even more questions than he did last month. He said some conversations have led him to believe that the county has been misled by the a winning construction firm in the bid process. He said that, if that turns out to be the case, the winning bid should be thrown out since it did not meet contract specifications laid out by the county.
The discussion should make for an interesting one on August 6 since some other commissioners say they feel that the projects need to move forward and feel that county staff has already bent over backwards to try and get more MWBE participation in the projects.
Don’t fix dilapidated government buildings that are used by the public. Just close them and inconvenience the public.
Don’t fix potholes, or even contribute the 10-20% to the street and highway projects. Just let them fall apart and ruin cars and cargo trucks that use them.
Sounds like a recipe for success to me. We’ll surely catch up to a surpass Raleigh and Charlotte in economic success and quality of life with this group of Einsteins and George Washington Carvers around.
Mr. Alston and supporters, those of us who live in High Point, pay Guilford County taxes too. The issues with maintenance at these two County owned facilities has been ongoing for years. We now have an improvement design, a successful bidding process and you have been advised to make the contract award. Just because you cannot understand the difficulties in finding qualified minority contractors who have the appropriate insurance coverage and can get a performance bond, you want to hold up the contract award? I hope that if you do not award the contract to the low bidder and move forward, that that contractor will find an excellent attorney who will file a suit against the County. Then, we can re-advertise the project, get a higher bid and run the risk of the same problem with the MWBE participation. That way, the project is further delayed, the damage to the buildings increases, the County ends up paying more for the project and on top of that gets to defend itself in court. Of course non of this matters to you and your group as long as you can be certain that “goals” are met. The reason that these “goals” are not requirements is that they are grossly unfair and are discriminatory. Have you ever considered that there are valid reasons that these “goals” are rarely met? Let the free market place work as it is supposed to.
Hear, hear! Well said.
Skip if they are not applying do you want to just wish for them?
Same ol’, same ol’, again. Hire the most qualified, regardless of sex or color. What’s hard about that?
Sigh.
Coop, as in cop – out.
Am I the only one who’s tired of black racism?
Just do the job. Who cares about the color of the skin of the people who do the work?
Aren’t we supposed to be a color blind society?
Let the best bid get the job.
Right?
See my comment under Hightower artcle. Ditto for here.
When is the last time Skip “the Racist” Alston complained about the low number of white players on basketball and football teams? I see the signs around that say “undo racism.” Fine, how soon can we exile Skip and Hightower from the local area?