Last month, we challenged the two elected officials who make appointments to the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District Board of Trustees – Mayor Francis G. Slay and County Executive Charlie A. Doolie – to see why their appointees were blocking a move to mandate greater minority inclusion in contracting and workforce at the agency, which is poised to spend $4.7 billion for sewer system improvements over the next 20 years.
On Dec. 8, MSD board trustees failed to pass a resolution that would increase minority participation on MSD construction projects and professional services. Two Slay appointees (John H. Goffstein and David Visintainer) and one Dooley appointee (Gerald Feldhaus) voted against mandating new inclusion goals until a disparity study had been completed.
Had any one of these men voted differently, MSD would have set separate subcontracting goals for minority business enterprises (25 percent) and for women business enterprises (5 percent) for all construction and professional service contracts of $50,000 or more. MSD also would have set a new minority workforce goal of 25 percent. Currently MSD awards 25 percent of all building contracts of $50,000 or more cumulatively to either MBEs or WBEs, and its workforce participation goals are 14.7 percent for minorities and 6.9 percent for women.
The St. Louis Branch of the NAACP subsequently turned the heat up much higher on this urgent manner, threatening an economic boycott of tax-generating industries in St. Louis city and county come April should MSD continue to drag its feet and wait for yet another disparity study to tell us what so many other regional disparity studies have told us: that African Americans do not benefit proportionately from contracts and workforce opportunities at public utilities.
At last Thursday’s board meeting, MSD Executive Director Jeff Theerman made it clear he had heard the message. He promised to speed up the process of procuring and completing the disparity study, reconsider implementing interim improvements to MSD’s M/WBE program and engage a variety of stakeholders in a new effort to reinvigorate MSD’s inclusion efforts. “As we begin an unparalleled construction program, we should strive to have an unparalleled program of inclusion for minorities, women and disadvantaged businesses,” Theerman said. “Not just in terms of contracts alone, but in terms of workforce diversity as well.”
Theerman said precisely what the NAACP, other inclusion advocates and we have been saying. It is meaningful that he stepped forward and publicly made this commitment in these strong words in the heat of the current controversy and threatened boycott. We commend his leadership. Adolphus Pruitt, St. Louis NAACP president, whose own leadership has been crucial to this effort, also received Theerman’s comments with encouragement. However, he did not back down at the sound of promises. “Whether it is sufficient to abate our movement toward a boycott, that will ultimately be determined by the interim initiatives that they are talking about putting in place,” Pruitt said.
We continue to insist that the new proposed inclusion numbers for MSD are a step in the right direction and should be implemented immediately, despite any inistence from MSD about going through the motions of yet another disparity study. We also consider it a good sign that Dooley is replacing his appointee who voted against the new inclusion goals (Gerald Feldhaus) on the MSD Board of Trustees. A new day for minority inclusion at MSD may be imminent.
