Cebo

A cease-fire has been reached in a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle between Baltimore's Council for Equal Business Opportunity and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. If the city fulfills certain bureaucratic conditions, federal funds will be released to enable CEBO to continue operating as an instrument for minority economic development in Baltimore City.HUD has been on CEBO's case ever since an audit late last yearThe audit revealed the 24-year-old CEBO was a mess. The status of loans was difficult to determine because many records were missing.

It's been eight months since the Maryland Center for Arts and Technology Inc. moved into a new space in downtown Baltimore, but its president and chief executive officer, Michael A. Gaines Sr., hasn't had time to dress up his stark, white office or even unpack the cardboard boxes stacked against the wall. But there are a few decorations that have made their way out on display: two framed photographs that include Mayor Martin O'Malley and executives from Hewlett-Packard Co. There's also a letter from Hewlett-Packard congratulating the center for winning a $5 million grant to help Baltimore.

The Council for Equal Business Opportunity Inc., (CEBO) began 22 years ago as a guide for minorities who sought equal access to business ownership.Since then, CEBO has expanded its orientation to all small businesses, and not just those owned by minorities.The organization is preparing for the challenge the 1990's in economic development under its executive director, Michael A. Gaines Sr. 39, a graduate of Baltimore Polytechnic High School and the University of Maryland, College Park.Before coming to CEBO, he spent three years at the Baltimore Economic Development Corporation, (BEDCO)

A local public-private partnership that helps minority businesses will be cloned in 25 communities this fall, a top U.S. Commerce Department official said yesterday.The program, Minority Business Development Initiative, which is run by Baltimore's Council for Economic and Business Opportunity (CEBO), links minority firms with bankers, investors and governmental agencies and gives them access to venture capital.Joan Parrott-Fonseca, director of the Commerce Department's Minority Business Development Agency, said the federal agency plans to use the initiative as a national prototype.

The city Board of Estimates has approved a $50,000 federal grant for the Council for Equal Business Opportunity even though federal housing officials ordered the city not to award any more federal money to the non-profit group.In November, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ordered the city to stop awarding federal money to CEBO because it was not being spent in accordance with federal guidelines.Those guidelines say the money should be used to create permanent jobs or to eliminate urban blight.

The city has approved a $25,000 emergency appropriation for the Council for Equal Business Opportunity, a private non-profit group whose federal funding was frozen after U.S. officials questioned $2 million of the group's expenditures.CEBO was created to provide loans and financial advice to small, minority-owned businesses.But last November, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ordered the city to cut off CEBO's federal grant of more than $600,000 because CEBO could not prove the money was being used to help low- to moderate-income people or to eliminate urban blight, as required by HUD regulations.

In 1983, politician-turned-businessman Robert L. Douglass needed a loan for his struggling business, Baltimore Electronics, Inc.Douglass, a former state senator and city councilman, turned to the Council for Equal Business Opportunity, just as many other minority businesses have done over the past two decades.CEBO lent the company $30,000 that year. But most of the money never was repaid.Three years later, the company needed help again, and CEBO stepped in to guarantee a $76,094 loan from a bank.

The city's housing department released more than $200,000 this month to a troubled minority business organization, apparently without meeting conditions required by the overseeing federal agency.On May 6, the city's Department of Housing and Community Development requested $220,358.11 from the city accounting office, according to documents obtained by The Evening Sun.Four days later, HCD released the money to the Council for Equal Business Opportunity but before the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had a chance to approve documents that would show whether the city is monitoring CEBO's expenses in the manner HUD had directed it be done.

Baltimore housing officials estimate it may take two weeks for the troubled Council for Equal Business Opportunity to regain its financing, now that the federal government has reversed itself and given the city a conditional go ahead to fund the minority business group.CEBO, a private, non-profit organization which has existed for more than two decades almost exclusively on government funds, had its federal grant of more than $600,000 a year cut off last November by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

A local public-private partnership that helps minority businesses will be cloned in 25 communities this fall, a top U.S. Commerce Department official said yesterday.The program, Minority Business Development Initiative, which is run by Baltimore's Council for Economic and Business Opportunity (CEBO), links minority firms with bankers, investors and governmental agencies and gives them access to venture capital.Joan Parrott-Fonseca, director of the Commerce Department's Minority Business Development Agency, said the federal agency plans to use the initiative as a national prototype.

Baltimore's long-vacant American Brewery would be renovated as the centerpiece of a $10 million to $12 million revitalization project for East Baltimore under plans developed by the Council for Economic and Business Opportunity.CEBO President Michael Gaines told representatives of the Broadway East community last week that two manufacturing companies have signed letters of intent to occupy the first phase of the mixed-use complex and that he expects construction to begin soon."Shortly, that site will no longer stand as a deteriorated industrial building," he said.

CEBO project helping minority companiesA year and a half ago, the Council for Economic and Business Opportunity (CEBO) established a project to help minority businesses get involved in a business initiative to make the life sciences the new engine for the region's economy.In partnership with University of Maryland Medical Systems, CEBO went looking for medical supplies, high-tech equipment, even paper clips or furniture -- any service or product a local minority-owned business might supply the hospital at competitive prices.

Demolition is under way at the old American Brewery in East Baltimore, where several buildings are being razed and others are slated for renovation under a city-backed urban renewal project.The brewery complex, which includes eight buildings in the 1600 and 1700 blocks of N. Gay St., was built in 1887 to house the John Frederick Wiessner brewery.Only the original brew house, which has been designated a national historic site, and the bottling building that dates from the 1940s will be saved, city officials say.Six other structures -- including buildings used once as a beer cellar, barrel storage facility, barrel washing facility, refrigeration structure, boiler room and machine shop -- are being torn down.

Groucho Marx had a famous gag which went, "he's a very honest fellow, but you have to watch him."That line seems appropriate for a report yesterday that the city housing department turned over nearly a quarter million dollars in federal funds to the Council for Equal Business Opportunity, a local minority business development program, before officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development had a chance to approve new guidelines aimed at ensuring...

The city's housing department released more than $200,000 this month to a troubled minority business organization, apparently without meeting conditions required by the overseeing federal agency.On May 6, the city's Department of Housing and Community Development requested $220,358.11 from the city accounting office, according to documents obtained by The Evening Sun.Four days later, HCD released the money to the Council for Equal Business Opportunity but before the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had a chance to approve documents that would show whether the city is monitoring CEBO's expenses in the manner HUD had directed it be done.

Baltimore housing officials estimate it may take two weeks for the troubled Council for Equal Business Opportunity to regain its financing, now that the federal government has reversed itself and given the city a conditional go ahead to fund the minority business group.CEBO, a private, non-profit organization which has existed for more than two decades almost exclusively on government funds, had its federal grant of more than $600,000 a year cut off last November by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

A long-running dispute between the city Housing Department and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development threatens to shut down the only area organization dedicated to encouraging minority business development in Baltimore.The subject of the dispute is the Council for Equal Business Opportunity, Inc., an independent, non-profit group created in 1967 to help minority-owned businesses secure commercial loans and to provide start-up capital for fledgling businesses through a revolving credit fund.

Despite its $1.4 million worth of bad loans, missing records and other problems, the embattled Council for Equal Business Opportunity appears to have regained federal funding.CEBO, a private non-profit organization, was created 24 years ago as a lender and adviser to high-risk minority businesses in Baltimore that cannot get bank financing.The organization relies on public money and until yesterday had faced extinction because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development cut off funding last year.

A cease-fire has been reached in a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle between Baltimore's Council for Equal Business Opportunity and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. If the city fulfills certain bureaucratic conditions, federal funds will be released to enable CEBO to continue operating as an instrument for minority economic development in Baltimore City.HUD has been on CEBO's case ever since an audit late last yearThe audit revealed the 24-year-old CEBO was a mess. The status of loans was difficult to determine because many records were missing.

The federal department of Housing and Urban Development said yesterday that it will call off a freeze on federal support for the Council for Equal Business Opportunity, but only if Baltimore agrees to impose strict guidelines for the spending.In a letter addressed to Representative Kweisi Mfume, D-Md.-7th, who has been lobbying HUD officials to restore the federal funds, a HUD assistant secretary said the city's failure to to correct problems in its management of block grant programs "raises a serious question as to the city's ability to substantially // comply with program requirements."