Black Leaders Object : Port’s New Minority Recruiter Draws Fire

Elizabeth Moore, hired last week to improve the San Diego Unified Port District’s poor record of attracting minority- and female-headed businesses to Lindbergh Field, has failed in the very same task as head of the city of San Diego’s Equal Opportunity Program, according to charges from leaders of prominent black organizations.

In the past several months, minority business owners, the president of the Black Economic Development Task Force and Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s Black Advisory Board all have expressed frustration with the performance of the city’s Equal Opportunity Program, headed by Moore since its inception in late 1984. O’Connor’s panel took the unusual step last month of formally voting “no confidence” in the program.

“The appearance was that, based on what the results were, she just wasn’t getting the job done,” said Harold K. Brown, president of the Black Economic Development Task Force and associate dean of the College of Business Administration at San Diego State University. “There are many blacks I talked with who just feel there is no advocacy there for minority firms.”

Breaking Up Agency

City Manager John Lockwood last month decided to break up Moore’s agency and distribute its staff between two other city departments, relieving Moore of some of the responsibilities she now holds for encouraging minority- and female-owned construction firms, consultants and vendors to do business with the city.

Lockwood and Assistant City Manager Jack McGrory insisted, however, that the decentralization of Moore’s agency--scheduled to take effect Sept. 1--was a bureaucratic reorganization planned amid city budget cuts this year. They said the reorganization will make the program more efficient and is not intended to force Moore to leave.

“She’s going to the Port because she wants to go to the Port, not because she’s being pressured to leave the city of San Diego,” McGrory said of Moore, who will take a pay cut of at least $4,800 annually when she switches jobs.

Lockwood said that, “if the rumor’s out that she was asked to leave, that is wrong. . . . I would never reorganize around an individual, and I never will.”

Moore’s office said she was vacationing in Europe and could not be reached for comment.

At the Port District, Moore will take on the sensitive task of attracting minority and women business owners to Lindbergh, where few of the current lessees qualify as “disadvantaged” under Federal Aviation Administration guidelines. A goal of 25% minority- and women-led businesses has been set, said Port Director Don Nay.

Moore will replace Ted Woodard, who resigned the post in May after only three weeks on the job, citing personal reasons. Woodard was the first person to hold the post, which was created at the recommendation of the FAA.

Nay said he was unaware of criticism of Moore when he offered her the job Aug. 3 and said he has received only a single anonymous letter about her qualifications since her hiring was announced last week.

Nay said he hired Moore because “she’s mature. She’s had quite a bit of experience. She knows the local contracting world here, I think.”

City Councilman Wes Pratt, who represents the largely black 4th District and was a member of a Port District task force attempting to create more opportunity at the Port for minorities, said he was surprised at the choice of Moore for the post.

‘I Was Aware of the Criticism’

“I was aware of the criticism she had received from the public and people she was doing business with,” Pratt said. He said, however, that he would give Moore “a reasonable opportunity to prove herself, as I would anyone.”

Statistics for fiscal year 1988, the latest full year available, show that the city failed to meet its goals for hiring “minority business enterprises” in all three categories: construction contracts, vendor contracts and consultant contracts. The biggest gap was in vendors, where just 5% of sales came from minority-owned businesses. The city goal was 8%.

McGrory said the city is hamstrung by a City Charter provision requiring it to accept the lowest bid from vendors. He said Moore’s switch into the city’s purchasing department, which does the most business with vendors, would have allowed her to concentrate on that problem.

McGrory also said that figures for the first six months of 1989 show strong improvement in hiring of minority business enterprises, particularly in the consultants category.

But some blacks, noting that the city is exceeding its goals for hiring female-owned businesses, are concerned that Moore was not doing all she could to recruit minority contractors.

“The lack of advocacy would indicate there is not a strong commitment to the minority community,” Brown said.

Other objections to Moore included:

* The “no-confidence” vote in July by O’Connor’s Black Advisory Panel, which asked that “the mayor, in conjunction with the city manager, take steps to make the Equal Opportunity Office more responsive in carrying out the guidelines and directions of the Equal Opportunity Office.”

“Everybody on that board, to a person, knew that changes had to be made,” said Willie Blair, an aide to O’Connor who is her liaison to the panel. Blair said a majority of the board voted not to mention Moore by name in the memo.

* A running battle with Khalada Salaam-Alaji, a member of the Citizens Equal Opportunity Commission appointed by the mayor and council, who complained in letters to Moore and McGrory that she has been unable to get information from Moore, including a detailed ethnic breakdown of contractors hired by the city.

Salaam-Alaji also complained that a directory listing minority-led firms was unavailable, despite a city requirement that Moore’s office keep one. The directory is designed to help white-owned companies locate minority firms to use as subcontractors.

She also said that Moore failed to obtain quarterly reports from the city’s five quasi-independent agencies listing the status of their minority hiring efforts and that minority-owned firms were having difficulty getting certified as city contractors.

“The two years that I was on the commission under Elizabeth, I just don’t think she took the job that seriously,” Salaam-Alaji said. “I don’t think the effort was put in to try and really get minorities to participate with the city.”

McGrory said the problem with the quarterly reports was the responsibility of the five quasi-independent agencies and has been corrected. He added that the 2-year-old city directory, which has gotten out of date, is supplemented by up-to-date computer printouts of available minority firms.

* A letter from Brown and the Rev. George Walker Smith listing similar complaints, along with charges that Moore’s office was failing to notify minority contractors about business opportunities and was not responding to request for information from minority business owners.

* Similar complaints from three separate minority business owners to Councilman Bob Filner, who then sought improvements in the program from McGrory.

Filner aide Allen Jones said, however, that Filner did not seek action against Moore.