Three Aurora City Council members are calling for more city contracts to be awarded to minority- and women-owned businesses.
Aldermen Juany Garza and Scheketa Hart-Burns have been working together for many months on the issue, meeting with Mayor Tom Weisner to discuss their concerns.
Ald. Richard Irvin has spent weeks analyzing $7 million worth of city contracts and expenditures, a random sample of the $50 million paid out in 2007. He said that while minorities make up 53 percent of the city’s population, they accounted for less than 2 percent of its contracts.
“We need a mechanism, an ordinance, to ensure equality,” Irvin said. “I believe the contractors should look like the makeup of our city.”
The three aldermen are just starting to pool their efforts, forming a committee to address the issue.
Amy Roth, a spokesman for the city, said Weisner “has encouraged the use of minority- and women-owned businesses for city work, but he has concerns about quota-based programs.”
Roth said Weisner is interested in further study of Irvin’s idea to create a law that would require a percentage of city contracts to go to minority- and women-owned businesses.
Irvin said he has met with resistance from the mayor, who was unavailable to comment Monday.
“To hear the words ‘quota’ or ‘affirmative action’ suggests that we want to put minorities and women in various positions for their gender or color of their skin,” Irvin said. “That’s not what I’m interested in. We want to open up opportunities that they did not have in the past.”
The council members differ on what to call their plan and resist the idea of naming it a “set-aside program.” Hart-Burns doesn’t like the term because she said minorities and women are part of the community and should be included rather than set aside.
Garza said she has been approached by a number of minority residents who feel cut out from city work. She said there are a number of obstacles that keep minority contractors from city contacts.
“They don’t know how to bid,” Garza said. Instead, “they have to go all the way to Chicago to work. That’s not fair when we have so many construction projects in our own city.”
She said that by awarding more contracts to minorities, the city would enrich entire communities.
“If they helped minorities, they would have a better quality of life,” Garza said, adding that the money would help lower-income families survive and thrive. “We have students who need to go to college, but they can’t because their parents don’t have enough money.”
Garza said she is working with both the Hispanic and Quad County African American Chambers of Commerce to help educate minority-owned companies on the bidding process, including how to fill out the paperwork.
She and Irvin hope the city will vote on a plan this summer.
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jnapolitano@tribune.com
