Port Acts to Give More Work to Minority Firms

The Board of Port Commissioners on Tuesday approved a new plan and goals aimed at providing businesses owned and controlled by minorities and women more access to port contracts and leases.

The approval of the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Plan and the setting of contracting goals for this year follows criticism that the San Diego Unified Port District has not done enough to provide business opportunities for minorities and women, both at district-operated Lindbergh Field and along the San Diego Bay shoreline, home to many lucrative commercial businesses.

In fact, for years the only minority-owned business with a contract at the airport belonged to a black shoeshine man.

Criticism of the Port District’s lack of aggressive efforts to enlist more minorities and women as leaseholders or contractors has continued at a steady pace from both San Diego’s Latino and black communities as well as from some members of the City Council.

In exchange for federal government funding to help operate the airport, the Port District was required by the Federal Aviation Administration to draft a plan that allowed more participation by minorities and women. The new plan has received the endorsement of the FAA’s regional office in Los Angeles, according to Port Director Don Nay. The plan, he said, will be used not only at the airport but will encompass other contracts on tidelands controlled by the Port District.

Commissioners approved both the new plan and the annual contracting goals, which call for businesses run by minorities and women to receive 30% of the Port District’s construction and professional contracts and 9% of new leases. The public has 45 days to comment on the goals before they are formally adopted.

A spokesman for the Coalition of Hispanic Professionals Assn. and the Mexican-American Business Professionals Assn. told commissioners that, while portions of the new plan and goals are an improvement, the district continues to lack a balance of blacks, Latinos and women “across the board” in its work force.