City Contracts

The City Council is expected to take another step today in returning a law to the books directing how Baltimore does business with minority and female subcontractors. The measure, which is scheduled to be returned to the full council, is designed to replace the city's minority set-aside law that was declared unconstitutional. Mayor Martin O'Malley said the bill proves the city has not given up on its original goals. "I think there were some who thought when our bill was struck down, and we elected a mayor who was white, that Baltimore City would be retreating," he said.

OVER THE YEARS, Baltimore City officials have come to consider Roberto Marsili a pain in the neck. And they may be right. The retired stonemason is so persistent as to be irritating. And he gets downright livid whenever anyone challenges him about his stock in trade -- dirt, rocks and concrete. Two years ago, when Phipps Construction beat out three other companies for a demolition job in Mr. Marsili's native Little Italy, it did not take long for the activist to blow the whistle. The job was being done all wrong, he insisted.

The 5,000-member City Union of Baltimore has ratified a one-year contract with a 2.25 percent raise, ending a three-month holdout and clearing one of the last labor contract hurdles for Mayor Martin O'Malley. An appeals court is deciding the outcome of the city's last unsettled contract, which involves 1,800 city firefighters. O'Malley received word last night from city Labor Commissioner Melvin Harris that CUB members - clerical, technical and administrative employees - had voted 189-15 to accept the same city offer it had rejected a month ago; the deal will cost taxpayers about $2.5 million.

The City Council will return from its summer recess tonight to face issues ranging from minority contracting goals to confirming a new parks and recreation director. Among the matters that will be before the council is what to do about the city's minority contracting law, which was nullified by a federal judge this year. The law required that 20 percent of all city contracts go to minority-owned companies and 3 percent to businesses owned by women. During recent council committee hearings, Mayor Martin O'Malley's administration proposed raising the contracting goals for minorities and women to 35 percent and enforcing them at the Board of Estimates.

Mayor Martin O'Malley told city agencies yesterday that he wants to award 35 percent of all contracts to minority and women-owned businesses, hoping to resuscitate earlier goals nullified by a federal judge in December. O'Malley set the new minority participation goal in an executive order. Although that order is nonbinding, the mayor said he intends to use the powers granted him under the City Charter to push the minority participation goal when contracts come before the Board of Estimates.

In an effort to appease minority business owners, city officials this week worked on revamping a proposal to increase minority participation in city contracts by providing for the Board of Estimates to set contracting goals annually. City Solicitor Thurman W. Zollicoffer Jr. unveiled the amendments during two City Council hearings on the issue, as officials grapple with a federal judge's ruling in December that invalidated the city's minority set-aside law. Mayor Martin O'Malley introduced a bill in June to increase minority participation goals while trying to avoid further court scrutiny.

Revamping Baltimore's law guaranteeing women and minorities a share of city building contracts will be the subject of two public hearings by the City Council's Labor and Economic Development Subcommittee. The first hearing is today in City Hall. The bill, presented by Mayor Martin O'Malley, seeks to ensure disadvantaged groups get their fair share of city contracts, without setting specific set-aside percentages. "You can't have a requirement, or a quota, or any language that smacks of a quota," said Tony White, spokesman for O'Malley.

In the wake of a federal judge ruling Baltimore's minority contracting law unconstitutional, Mayor Martin O' Malley is proposing legislation that would sharply reduce the percentage of city contracts that go to minority- and woman-owned businesses. The measure would reduce the percentage of contracts required to go to African-American businesses from 20 percent to 14 percent on construction projects and as low as zero on service contracts. U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis struck down the city law in December, saying the city failed to meet a requirement to periodically update statistics showing a disparity in the amount of work Baltimore awards to minority- and woman-owned companies.

Extra payments in Baltimore public works department contracts over the last five years have reached at least $98.9 million, according to a review released yesterday by the chairman of the City Council Budget Committee. Southeast Baltimore Councilman Nicholas C. D'Adamo Jr. said yesterday his review of an estimated 1,800 public works contracts with overruns showed that Baltimore taxpayers paid up to 10 times the original bid price, as much as $15 million on a $1.5 million contract. About 25 city contractors repeatedly charged the city for contract excesses, D'Adamo said, with low bidders regularly exceeding the initial highest estimate.

Last year, the Johns Hopkins University and hospital received $8.5 million in city contracts, according to city purchasing records. That's the same Johns Hopkins that a month ago was the site of a 17-day sit-in by students protesting the institution's refusal to pay about 1,000 service workers from a subsidiary company a "living wage." That the incident occurred in Baltimore -- the first of 41 cities in the nation to pass legislation requiring city contractors to pay workers above the federal poverty level -- hasn't been lost on the designers of the city's wage law. Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development (BUILD)