Nutter replaces minority-hiring council

Concluding that it had failed to help minority-owned companies, Mayor Nutter yesterday dissolved the Minority Business Enterprise Council, replacing it with a new unit that reports directly to him.

The $1.1 million budget and 22 employees of MBEC, which was long criticized for red tape and a failure to improve the lot of minority businesses, will be placed under an Economic Opportunity Cabinet led by Nutter and his top staff.

Nutter appointed Michael Bell, compliance director for the city's Office of Housing and Community Development, to head the new Economic Opportunity Office.

The office will try for more success in performing MBEC's stated mission: Help businesses owned by minorities, women or the disabled get their fair share of city contracts.

Nutter gave Bell until Jan. 31 to evaluate the city's needs regarding minority businesses and come up with a plan to meet them.

Nutter said he expected Bell's plan to help build the capacity of minority businesses, increase the number of those that are certified, implement suggestions to improve construction-industry diversity, and find ways to enforce hiring objectives.

"We are about to reorganize and refocus our city government, to elevate support and commitment and concern for minority businesses to levels that we have not seen in recent times," Nutter said.

Bell will work with Kevin Dow, the new deputy commerce director for neighborhood and business services, to improve service and resources for minority businesses as part of the larger economic-development strategy, Nutter said.

A lack of resources and technology at MBEC resulted in long delays in certifying companies as minority businesses. Only 4 percent of the 20,295 minority-owned businesses and 18,976 women-owned businesses are certified, Nutter said, and only 8 percent of city contracts go to minority companies.

MBEC's monitoring and enforcement of minority-hiring goals were feeble, at best.

MBEC was created with bright hopes in 1982 to ensure that businesses owned by minorities, women or the disabled "are afforded equal access and opportunity to compete for and secure contracts within the City of Philadelphia," according to the city's Web site.

That promise was never fulfilled. City Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown has been holding business roundtables since 2000 to address complaints from businesses about MBEC.

"To now know that it's going to be a priority of attention - it's long overdue," Brown said.

At least 100 business owners and residents, packed into the Mayor's Reception Room, greeted the appointments with enthusiastic applause.

Alburn Brown, president of Umoja Erectors L.L.C., said MBEC had taken two years to certify his previous business, Komplete Welding. He said that he was glad to see MBEC go, but that no initiative would have teeth without enforcement.

"They haven't done anything for me," he said. "But if they don't have the enforcement, it's back to the same old thing."

Nutter said he would ask the Inspector General's Office to monitor any complaints about certification or hiring compliance in city contracts.

Councilman W. Wilson Goode Jr. said MBEC had never held contractors accountable for failing to hire minorities. He said Bell's appointment "signals a new day for years of struggle in this effort."

"However," Goode said, "a new day will not be realized until city contractors will actually be disbarred from doing business with the city for the failure to make real efforts towards diversity."

Cassandra Hayes said that her Bodacious Promotions was registered with MBEC, but that she hadn't gotten any city business for 11 years. She wondered what would become of already-registered companies - they won't have to reregister, Bell said - and whether her luck would change.

"I almost applauded when he said it," Hayes said of Nutter's dissolution of MBEC. "The organization was useless. Not only useless - it would put obstacles in your path."

Nutter promised to make clearing those obstacles his priority. The fact that he would be directly involved should raise the priority for all city workers, he said.

"If you get a call from Michael Bell, you should take it very seriously," Nutter said. "You'd really do better with that Michael than with this Michael."

Bell will be paid $90,000 annually, Dow $115,000. MBEC's director, Carolyn Nichols, made $113,000. Her new duties have not been determined, said Andrew Altman, the city's deputy mayor for planning and commerce.