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Stevens calls 'pass-through' pacts 'a sham'
Tuesday, June 13, 2000 By Ervin Dyer, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
"Pass-through" contracts that flow from minority and women businesses for stadium projects to firms owned and managed by white males are "a sham" that threaten the economic vitality of the black community, said Pittsburgh NAACP President Tim Stevens.
Supported by at least seven other Allegheny County chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Stevens last night said he is backing County Executive Jim Roddey's proposal to seek a federal investigation into the construction contracts.
And he agrees with state Reps. William Robinson, D-Hill District, and Don Walko, D-North Side, in asking for a halt to state funding for the convention center project until the matter is resolved.
This is a "sin, a sham and a shame," said Stevens, referring to the allegations that the Pittsburgh Sports & Exhibition Authority violated the set-aside laws aimed at giving minorities at least 25 percent of the construction work for the new football and baseball stadiums. The same affirmative action goals would give female-owned businesses at least 10 percent of the business.
Given the rate of black unemployment in the Pittsburgh region, said Stevens, "we cannot allow minority-owned brokers and supplier companies to simply pass along contracts to white-owned businesses."
The Pittsburgh chapter, along with branches in Wilkinsburg, East Hills, Penn Hills, East Boroughs, McKeesport, North Hills and Clairton, will send out letters to Gov. Ridge, the state attorney general and federal officials that support the removal of Stephen Leeper, director of the Sports & Exhibition Authority.
The NAACP branches also advocate creation of a new city-county agency that would oversee minority participation in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center project and legislation that would close the loopholes that allows such practices to take place.
The local civil rights groups have not decided how to address the problem of minorities who transfer their work to white-owned firms and cause problems for others in their communities.
"We thought it was important to try to stop the flow of money into these 'pass-throughs' first" said Antoinette Moses, president of the Wilkinsburg NAACP.
"But as we move toward a workforce in 2025 that will be more minority, something has to be done," Moses said.
Recent reports show black males and working-age black families are hit by unemployment rates nearly three times higher than those in the white community.
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