That Pier Six Concert Pavilion deal sure sounds like a minority-contracting front:
A big downtown developer gets picked to revamp the city-owned concert venue, and as part of the deal, agrees to give a cut of the profits to a politically connected African-American church. Bethel AME doesn't put up a dime and doesn't do a lick of work. It just sits back and collects 10 percent.
But you can't call that a minority-contracting front - because they're not putting up much of a front.
"The Church does not have to do anything or pay anything for its 10%," Reed Cordish wrote in an e-mail to The Sun.
Isn't that the sort of no-show job that gives minority contracting a bad name?
The deal only evokes good names for the Rev. Frank Reid, pastor of Bethel - names such as Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson and (just in time for tomorrow's holiday) the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"This was a Rosa Parks business moment," Reid says. "Just like Rosa Parks' act drew fire in the community because it was something that had never been done before, perhaps that might be one of the reasons it's drawing fire today."
So was Cordish courageously defending the right of blacks to sit at the front of the development bus when he made the church part of his pavilion plan?
Or was he just trying to win over the Baltimore Development Corp., which favors projects with minority equity partners?
Let's not forget that two of Baltimore's top three elected officials - City Council President Sheila Dixon and Comptroller Joan Pratt - attend the church, and that the third - Mayor Martin O'Malley - has courted and enjoyed Bethel's political backing.
Samuel Lloyd, director of the Mayor's Office of Minority Business Development, who sat on the BDC committee that reviewed the Pier Six projects, says the church aspect of the deal "got my attention because it was unusual." But he said that did not play into the decision (which still needs Board of Estimates approval) to pick Cordish.
"In fairness to Mr. Cordish and his team, they never came to BDC in the posture that `This 10 percent contribution is my way of meeting some minority equity interest in this project,'" Lloyd said. "In truth, he was very aboveboard. He said, `This is what I want to do: I want to share the fruits of my labor with this church.' Anybody who invests their money is free to make contributions to anybody they want to make contributions to."
