Do incentives to the big guys trickle down?

City fails to track programs designed to provide work

Sam Morris

Community activist Stanley Washington is calling for cultural change concerning city contracting and jobs programs.

Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009 | 2 a.m.

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Let the good times roll. Please. (4-23-2009)
Development bills rebuff the logic of Vegas' tax breaks (4-1-2009)
Efforts of LV Redevelopment Agency lauded in study (2-13-2009)
Study to look at economic effect of city projects (2-2-2009)

The Las Vegas Redevelopment Agency has used tax breaks to lure to downtown several massive projects, hailed by city officials as evidence that efforts to revitalize the city’s core are succeeding.

Included in the deals that attracted The World Market Center, Premium Outlet Mall, Molasky Corporate Center and other projects were programs intended to benefit residents of surrounding neighborhoods through contracts to help build and jobs to help staff the facilities. Unlike the developers’ tax breaks, which the city is legally bound to provide, these programs relied on the “best efforts” or “good faith” of the owners, developers and contractors.

More than a decade after they were enacted, the programs simply have not worked, say community activists and some city officials.

Las Vegas officials acknowledge that their goals for minority contracting and local employment have not been met and concede they don’t know how short they have fallen because they don’t track the results.

City Councilman Ricki Barlow, whose Ward 5 includes much of the roughly 3,900-acre downtown redevelopment area, including some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, says the programs have been disregarded because no one believed the city truly cared about seeing its goals realized.

“Residents haven’t gotten what’s due them,” Barlow said. “The city as an enforcing agent has not done a good enough job.”

That might be changing. A community activist named Stanley Washington — who’s been prodding local officials to push developers to meet these goals for more than a decade — now has the attention of top city officials, including City Manager Betsy Fretwell.

In the end, Washington said, nothing will change if developers and business owners believe city leaders don’t care whether the city’s objectives are being heeded.

“There must be a cultural change, from the top down,” Washington said. “If it’s not from the top down, it isn’t going to happen.”

•••

In 1992, the city adopted its first employment plan to try to make sure that more than half of the jobs created by Redevelopment Agency-sponsored projects were filled by residents of the city’s mostly poor redevelopment area. A year later, the city adopted a contracting program to urge developers to hire a specific share of businesses owned by racial and ethnic minorities (25 percent), women (5 percent) and disabled veterans (2.5 percent.)

Five major projects have been completed in the city in roughly the past decade that have been subject to both programs: The World Market Center, the Molasky Corporate Center adjacent to Symphony Park, the Premium Outlet Mall, Allure Tower and Edmond Town Center, a strip mall on Owens Avenue.

The companies have agreed to try to meet the city’s guidelines in return for receiving Redevelopment Agency tax breaks. But neither the city nor the owners of the developments contacted for this story could say that the city’s guidelines were being met.

“As the city’s largest taxpayer, World Market Center’s significant infrastructure investment helped jump-start ... new development” downtown, Andrew Maiden, the center’s public relations manager, said in a written statement.

The World Market Center’s employment plan says the company will coordinate with the city’s minority business officer and Redevelopment Agency representatives, advertise in local newspapers and hold a job fair. The plan does not call for specific numbers or percentages of minorities or local residents to be hired.

Maiden didn’t answer questions about whether the center had met the city’s goals regarding local employment or minority contracting. But he did say that from its inception, it had “made good faith efforts to satisfy applicable employment parameters and requirements.”

Maiden also said that when the market center’s planned expansion is complete, it will have created about 35,000 additional “direct and indirect” jobs, which will generate more than $60 million in local and state tax revenue.

In 2008, the center received from the city’s Redevelopment Agency tax breaks worth $828,000.

•••

Bill Arent, acting director of the city’s Business Development Office, acknowledged that minority contracting goals generally haven’t been met. The range of minority-owned businesses hired by contractors has ranged from 2 percent to 12 percent, typically, nowhere close to the city’s goal of 25 percent.

These goals are important, said Katherine Duncan of the Las Vegas Ward 5 Chamber of Commerce because small, minority-owned businesses haven’t been part of the “good old boys” clubs in the local union and contracting worlds. Those “clubs” have been difficult to penetrate, she said.

“You can imagine what some of those dollars would do for our community,” Duncan said. “We just want to have an equal chance to make a living.”

On Sept. 25 Duncan and several minority subcontractor owners met with Arent, Kathy Rainey, the city’s purchasing and contracts manager, and a representative of Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., the main contractor for the Smith Center for the Performing Arts.

Though there were questions about whether Whiting-Turner was trying to meet city guidelines regarding minority contracting, Arent said the issue was largely moot. The Smith Center is classified as a public works project — despite its being funded, in part, through RDA bonds — and is thus subject to state law mandating that the lowest and most responsive bidders be hired, regardless of race or gender.

Rich Worthington, president of the Molasky Group of Companies, said he’s sympathetic to Duncan’s concerns. He worked “very hard” on the issue with then-Ward 5 Councilman Lawrence Weekly when the Molasky Corporate Center development agreement with the city was drafted.

He said his company had hired minority-owned contractors but couldn’t say how many. “We didn’t get the numbers we were looking for, but we worked at it.”

He also said he didn’t know what percentage of company employees live within the redevelopment area.

But Worthington said that’s not the point. The city’s contracting and employment goals are unrealistic, he said, and should be scrapped. A better way for the city to help, he said, would be to bolster and guide minority owned businesses so that they have a better shot at succeeding when they compete for work.

•••

The employment and contracting program goals were established “quite some time ago,” and might need revising, Arent said.

“I’d like to work with the City Council and the mayor to see what the right policy would be for today,” Arent said.

He suggested that ultimately a “carrot approach” might work better than a stick. That could include tax breaks for companies that show they are meeting the city’s guidelines.

Washington is also pushing for change. He plans to meet this month with city officials, including top administrator Fretwell, to get the city involved with a committee he’s looking to form, to be called the Employment Plan Compliance Committee.

He said his goal is to bolster the city’s commitment to enforcement so that developers feel more obligated to heed the city’s employment plan, last amended in 2001.

“It’s like, if there are no police officers out there on the street, you might do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do,” Washington said. “The same thing applies here.”

Discussion: 19 comments so far…

By Planetearthcalling

10/10/09 at 4:38 a.m.

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comment removed by staff
By neiman1

10/10/09 at 6:32 a.m.

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We just want an equal chance at making a living so "require" a percentage of employees to come from a certain geographic area or "give" a percentage of contracts to minority owned businesses. Why doesn't this sound like an "equal" chance to succeed?

The lame reasoning has been used for so long those espousing such discrimination don't even see the problem with their words or desires.
By richardr

10/10/09 at 7:48 a.m.

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Minority contracting? You get awarded a job If you are within 7% of the lowest bidder to account for your poor estimating skills being the minority you are? How fair is that? I believe were in a time now where hand outs and head starts should no longer be given to you because you happen to be a colored. Clean up your own streets of your own neighborhood create jobs by creating business stop blaming others!
By richardr

10/10/09 at 7:53 a.m.

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If you need jobs just open an ACORN office in your area they help you people
By dt0702

10/10/09 at 8:47 a.m.

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I think helping by bolstering and guiding minority owned businesses so that they have a better shot at succeeding when they compete for work, is a better idea. This takes the argument away of getting a "hand out" which is not what the city is trying to do, nor do minority owned businesses want a handout. They just want a fair shot and to break the "good ol boy" way of doing Las Vegas style business. Everyone knows how contracts have been and still are handed out in. If the city wasn't getting Federal money for doing this, believe me things would still be the same or even worse, the contracts would be dealt out in the basement of the mob museum.
By BorisR

10/10/09 at 10:41 a.m.

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Fremont Experience is too noisy and has too many vendors. It's just too much. You can't get a room facing fremont street and expect your share of rest. These old hotels donn't have sound proof windows and that's what's getting on my nerves. I had my room 2x , facing fremont street. No matter what sleep routine you have, you can't get your 5 hours without being disturbed.
Fremont Experience's laser show is cool but with the years it's probably through. Plaza and Vegas club are trying to keep up the old times but most money is being made at the Golden Nugget and probably the Fitzgerald and 4-Queens. The big casinos rule. Too bad, as the Plaza used to be the No 1 spot in the early days. I like downtown, regardless. And I do my shopping at that mall, as they have the same specials than you can find at the other outlets. No need for long drives.
Keep it up, Downtown. This may be your chance for the low budget visitors during this downturn.

From Switzerland
By VegasInsider

10/10/09 at 12:06 p.m.

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Thank Obuma, didn't he say not to do business with Vegas. What do you expect?

Citizens with no job skills and no money are already going to be getting free health care.

What else do you want?

Diversity is another form of Affirmitive Action which helps everybody except for white males which is really reverse discrimination.

People should be hired based on their skill and training not the color of their skin or their gender. It's rediculous.
By Harley

10/10/09 at 12:46 p.m.

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One would think such racial and economic profiling by a discriminating government entity would be illegal.

: (
By LasVegas2009

10/10/09 at 12:55 p.m.

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So you want special treatment because of race? What Horse$hit! This kind of thing should be done away with. The only color I see is green, my money being pissed away.
By bdover

10/10/09 at 1:02 p.m.

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Man, I think I'm back in the 1970's. When cities tried to force contractors and unions to reach percentages of their workers being minorities on public work. It never worked. The contractors would let a small amount of their contracts out to security companies and clean up services that were minorities. Then the contractor would blame the unions for not sending minorities out of the hall. The unions totally resisted providing minorities, since they had discriminated against blacks since forever. It all changed in the 90's when the massive amounts of Hispanics, legal and illegal grew to where they could not be ignored. So they were hired for all the less than skilled jobs, and fulfilled those minority percentage requirements. Left out? The blacks. To this day. Percentages are a joke, and you can have meeting after meeting, but the truth is that discrimination continues not just here in Vegas, but around the entire country. I went to so many of those meetings, and they were a "wink-wink" joke.
By Harley

10/10/09 at 1:09 p.m.

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One day you wake up to the epiphany that governments are nothing more than colossal criminal organizations that steal and discriminate under the ruse of being socially benefiting.

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By wizardofOz

10/10/09 at 1:20 p.m.

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These "people", that are referred to here, if they are well spoken, well dressed, well mannered, believe in American Ideals, and just want an "EQUAL OPPORTUNITY" should get a little help. NOT A HANDOUT. A little help.

For the life of me, I cannot see ANYTHING wrong with that, but I can CLEARLY see why they are concerned.

I, as a resident of Clark County, must confess that I think DOWNTOWN is a pathetic mess. And I mean that. One step above Reno. That's it.

I have (reluctantly) taken friends and relatives there, and aside from the smokers, drunks, gang-bangers, freaks, homeless, relentless cross street car-traffic, bums, panhandlers, goofballs, every single lackey with SOMETHING pierced, tattooed, or shaven, AND THE FACT THAT THE CLOSER YOU GET TO LAS VEGAS BLVD THE MORE THE AIR SMELLS LIKE A RAW OPEN SEWER, the 7 minute Fremont Street Experience is pleasant to watch (if you don't get pickpocketed or get burned by a drunk's lit cigarette).

So, I RARELY take visitors there. Unless, of course, they want those cheap free necklace beads or want to go get their picture taken in front of the "B**by-Joint" (use your imagination). But... since Las Vegas has a Mayor, who almost everytime you see the guy on TV is a-smilin' with a "Martini" glass in his hand, (Council Meetings excepted, I think), then I suppose the "Las Vegas Take-Your-Chances Experience" is just par for the smelly-freak-circus course that it is.

And parking (if you can call it that) is a general hassle, too.

Soooo...I say, if these "people" you refer to want to fix it up, then HELP 'em fix it up...!
By wizardofOz

10/10/09 at 1:52 p.m.

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And, for the above comments, the disclaimer:(LEGALLY entitled to work in the United States, i.e. E-Verify, but of course you knew that.)
By uptownward5

10/10/09 at 11:12 p.m.

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Big guys get free money to help little guy's neighborhood, provide jobs and contracting opportunities Uptown.

Big guys closes the street to Uptown and builds
big buildings downton with checks and big contracts to big guys friends.
By qwill

10/11/09 at 1:56 a.m.

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The European-American male is close to becoming a minority class. Where do they apply?
By dee

10/11/09 at 4:21 p.m.

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Its a crying shame when people expect handouts just because they are of a certain color, religion, race, age etc. I am a minority and I do not expect someone to hand me a job that I am not qualified for, just because I am from a "so-called" group. In these trying times we are expected to do more with less, it is very competitive and we need to stay one or two steps ahead of our peers. We are expected to perform at a high level and put out the best product possible. Low bids and charity jobs are only going to lead to shotty and sub-standard wormanship. This not only unsafe but unfair to the client that is paying top dollar for a particular project. I along with my colleagues have invested many countless hours and years educating and trainng ourselves in our craft. We dont just sit at home watching Oprah and waiting for a politician neighbor to call us with a free job. If any of the "unskilled trades" want to provide handouts, well that is their perogative. As far as skilled craftsmen and women, we should not be tossed aside for the sake of giving an unskilled worker our position. Would you pull a fully trained and seasoned Police Officer patrolling the street corner and replace him/her with a mall cop? I think not! Everyone has the right to work, I do not argue that fact but to give an unskilled worker a position that is not rightfully his is unjust and not fair to those that are paying the bills. And keep this in mind when you are judging us, to many of you critics out there, we may just look like "construction workers" working on a "construction job" and for the most part, a great majority are just that. But there are many CRAFTMEN and WOMEN out there that have more than paid their dues. Everyone from Electricians, Pipefitters, Plumbers Surveyers etc, this is not just a job, this is our career. If you want to take our career, do it the right way, go down to the union halls and apply for an apprenticeship, in other words....EARN IT LIKE I DID!
By dt0702

10/11/09 at 10:04 p.m.

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THANK GOVERNOR JIM FOR THIS CRAP !! HE'S AN ASS !! WE HAVE 2 MORE YEARS OF THIS CRAP HOLE !! I THINK THE ILLEGALS ARE LEAVING VEGAS FOR THE WEED OPPS IN CAlI, LEAVING THE DIMWITS HERE TO SCRAPE UP THE VOMIT. YOU ROACHES DON'T YOU GET IT ? ITS THE DAMN REPUBLICANS !!!!!