By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- City Council members Monday banked some of the $1.2 million in savings they expect on a trio of recreation-center renovations, approving a contract for the repair of the W.D. Hill center on Fayetteville Street.

But the vote led the chairwoman of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People to question how well officials are monitoring compliance with a local law that's supposed to open doors for black- and women-owned subcontractors.

Administrators conceded beforehand that the winning bidder, C.T. Wilson Construction, had "failed to obtain" any participation by such subcontractors. They favored giving the company the $480,260 deal anyway because it made the "good-faith effort" to entice their participation that the law demands.

But Durham Committee Chairwoman Lavonia Allison questioned whether officials are holding companies to account.

"We are really tired of 'good faith,' " she said. "All you do is check off [the box], and no teeth, no teeth at all."

She noted that unemployment among blacks, particularly among black men, runs substantially higher than it does among the overall population. She added that the public needs to know that contractors are being monitored and that officials are collecting employment.

"Is this aggressively going to be attacked any time there's this amount of money?" Allison asked.

Her appearance Monday at City Hall came less than a month after she turned aside a challenge to her leadership of the Durham Committee that was backed by several council members, Mayor Bill Bell among them.

One of the state's top political consultants, Brad Crone, later predicted that she would counter by trying to find "a wedge issue" against the council that would resonate with local voters.

The contracting issue could serve as such, and it would also give Allison a chance to target a political adversary, Deborah Giles, the director of the city department responsible for seeing that contractors follow the equal-opportunity law.

Giles was one of the three people who last month voted against retaining Allison as chairwoman of the Durham Committee, the main political group for local blacks.

Council members shrugged off Allison's complaint, voting 6-0 to award the contract.

One member, Farad Ali, cautioned administrators to "work for inclusion" now that they're more inclined to use normal bid procedures instead of employing large construction-management firms to organize smaller projects like the rec centers.

The management firms, he noted, had a good track record when it came to employing black- and women-owned subcontractors.

Citing a warning he received from someone in the business, Bell also cautioned against gamesmanship by contractors who'd obtain jobs by underbidding and then, after landing it, seek change orders to make good the difference.

The city's primary means of enforcing the required good-faith recruiting effort is to turn down bids. The council has done so previously, for example, voting 7-0 in August to bypass lower bids from two firms that hadn't bothered trying to hire black- or women-owned subs. The decision cost the city an extra $152,036 on a contract for work at its yard-waste dump.

A subcontractor's ownership status is no guarantee that its laborers will be black or female.

For example, a black-owned drywall subcontractor on the Holton Career and Resource Center experienced a job action last spring after its largely Hispanic work force complained about late paychecks. The project was run by the Durham Public Schools and Skanska USA Building Inc., one of the construction-management firms the city has used.

C.T. Wilson's in-house work force is about 16 percent black and 7 percent female.

_________________________________________

In other action

The council voted 6-0 Monday to give a St. Louis developer, McCormack Baron Salazar, an option to 10 acres of the Rolling Hills site.

The vote came over opposition from neighboring shopping center owner Larry Hester, who objected because the plans McCormack Baron is crafting for the city include retail development he fears would compete with his business.

The plan's main thrust, however, is to build up to 310 rental housing units and up to another 128 for potential owner-occupants.