Ed Reiskin Oakland City Administrator

Cathy D. Adams

The Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce (OAACC), led by President and CEO Cathy D. Adams, recently held a virtual meeting with Ed Reiskin, City Administrator, Oakland’s top executive.

Following a series of ongoing meetings throughout 2021, the collective is calling for measurable actions to resolve systemic problems in City of Oakland contracting practices.

The group is asking that the city “address delineate grave concerns centered on disparities that plague contracting opportunities for Black, minority and women-owned businesses.  Further, request for Reiskin and his administrative team to institute and implement needed changes with immediacy, by year’s end.”

“We want everyone to be clear and concise,” said Adams. “We know where we’ve been, and we know how we feel. However, for the sake of our businesses, we are focused on remedies to bring equity and parity to all city contracts.  We want progress and fairness in 2021 – the time is now.”

The collective maintains that all multicultural businesses are experiencing the same fate.

OAACC is working with other local chamber leaders including Jessica Chen (executive director, Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce), Barbara Leslie (president and CEO, Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce), Jennifer Tran (executive director, Oakland Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce); along with business executives Rick da Silva (LOH Realty & Investments/Wellington Property Company), Joe Partida (Partida Benefits & Insurance), Michael Baines (BGI Construction, INC) and; Paul Cobb, publisher, Post News Group.

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“There are three issues impacting the contracting activity in the City of Oakland,” said Eddie Dillard, former president and CEO of the Oakland Black Board of Trade and Commerce, a meeting participant. “First, the City of Oakland does not collect fines and penalties on non-compliant prime contractors.”

Citing an example, Dillard said, “A prime contractor who built the McArthur BART Transit Village Project was found to be non-compliant with the law and was assessed a $4 million fine. One year since the citation, the City of Oakland has not collected the fine. Monies from this fine could pay the combined budgets of city departments, specifically, Workplace and Employment and Race and Equity departments.”

Dillard continued, “Black contractors are included in city bids for public contracts, yet when the awards are given to prime contractors, Blacks contractors are removed from participation. This pattern and practice is illegal and against State law. We have witnessed this blatant exclusion from contracting awards, time and again among qualified Oakland-based Black businesses.”

“The repeated practice by city departments that issue waivers to non-compliant Small Local Business Enterprise (SLBE) and Local Business Enterprise (LBE) programs must stop,” Dillard said. “The continued practice of these non-compliant waivers, sponsored by department heads, relieves the city from enforcing its legally bound commitment to promote and utilize Oakland-based certificated firms. This pattern and practice must cease if we are to close the inequality gap addressed in the most recent disparity study.”

Participating business leaders and community activists focused on the following:

• Minority businesses directly impact the city’s economy, tax base, infrastructure, workforce, community stability and public safety;
• Equity, parity, and inclusion is not a trendy tagline rather requirements for all businesses;
• Equitable distribution of all contracts for all businesses;
• Strengthen city staffing to process corrections to policy deficiencies in a timely manner;
• Immediate redress to cure systemic challenges and problems with all city contracts;
• Implement and maintain accountability metrics with all city contracts;
• Adhere to findings in the disparity study;
• Actionable framework and timeline to enforce curative resolution to the City’s contracting practices with all businesses.

The Oakland Post’s coverage of local news in Alameda County is supported by the Ethnic Media Sustainability Initiative, a program created by California Black Media and Ethnic Media Services to support community newspapers across California.

Isabelle Price

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