Business With Minority-Owned Firms on the Rise : Affirmative action: ‘Protected class’ contracting nearly doubles, but City Council is disappointed with the slow progress. Blacks got 1.8% of city business, Latinos got 2.1% and white females got 5.1%.

The city has almost doubled the amount of business it does with firms owned by women and minorities in the last two years, city officials said last week.

But the progress was greeted coolly by City Council members, who said they expected much more.

Since 1989, the last time city analysts reported to the council, city departments have increased the dollar amount of contracts and purchase orders issued to the so-called “protected class firms” from 6.9% of city expenses for such items to 12.9%, the report said.

Such contracts amounted to more than $10.4 million last year, according to the report, which was prepared by the city’s affirmative action staff. The amount of funds, or money spent through the bidding process, was $81 million.

Members of the City Council grudgingly acknowledged that progress has been made but criticized efforts for not having gone far enough.

“On the whole, I applaud these embryonic efforts,” Councilman Isaac Richard said. “The point is, though, we shouldn’t get too excited because there was nothing before. If you’re starting from nothing, to say there are massive increases is specious.”

Paul Karsten, an administrative analyst, said the city purchasing staff had significantly lengthened the list of minority and female vendors who could do business with the city and developed a newsletter to let business people know the kinds of contracts on which they can bid.

When aggressive outreach efforts did not attract minority bidders, Karsten said, city staff approached minority and female vendors and asked: “Why didn’t you bid?”

The minority contracting picture has shown definite improvement, said Ramon Curiel, the city’s director of affirmative action, although he conceded that there is much room for improvement.

“Our job is to work ourselves out of a job,” Curiel said. “The fact that we still have an affirmative action program indicates we still have progress to make.”

Among the protected class firms doing business with the city, blacks got 1.8% of city business, Latinos got 2.1% and white females got 5.1%. The city’s population is about 18% black, 27% Latino, and 8% Asian and other minority groups.

City Atty. Victor Kaleta cautioned that the measure of a successful affirmative action program is not how closely the proportion of successful contractors matches the minority percentage of the population but how closely it approaches the proportion of available minority contractors.

“But when 55% of the population is black or brown and they’re only getting 4% of the contracts, there’s a wide enough disparity to point up some pretty flagrant disparities,” Richard said.

Representatives of the Black Business Assn. of Pasadena-Altadena told the council that 45% of the vendors and contractors listed with the city are minorities or women.

The group faulted the city for failing to establish minority contracting goals for city departments.

Curiel said the $10.4 million that went to minority firms may represent a significant undercount.

“It doesn’t take into account minority subcontractors and joint ventures,” he said, adding that the city will soon begin a tracking system for minority and female subcontractors.

Councilman Chris Holden urged that Curiel’s department be given more authority to police contractors who promise to use minority subcontractors and workers.

“The department almost has to be feared, like IRS,” he said.

Richard suggested that the Black Business Assn. be hired as a consultant to assist the city in recruiting more minority and female contractors.

“There’s absolutely no experience (in City Hall) with minority contracting,” he said.