Governor to launch initiative to support, enhance minority- and women-owned businesses
ANNAPOLIS, MD – Governor Martin O’Malley will join Lt. Governor Anthony Brown along with hundreds of small business owners, advocates and officials today to launch “MBE University,” an initiative to support Maryland’s minority- and women-owned businesses and to highlight the state’s MBE program, the oldest and most aggressive in the nation. The initiative will launch in Prince George’s County, home to the highest concentration of minority-owned firms in Maryland and will focus on opportunities for MBE firms to participate in government contracts and procurement.
The event will consist of workshops and a plenary session where the Governor will address attendees at 10:00 a.m. Following the Governor’s address, he and Lt. Governor Brown will participate in a roundtable discussion with small business owners and advocates.
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12 comments:
This program needs to be eliminated in todays world... EVERYONE SHOULD BE TREATED EQUALLY...
They should do away with it here on the eastern shore. No one is required to be in compliance. Few government contracts meet the goal set by the state. Look at the City of Salisbury. $84 million on the WWTP with a 20% goal of MBE participation and the city only met 1.8% of that goal. No one enforced this or even investigated as to why so little out of such a large contract was awarded to MBE's. There is and always has been so much fraud on government contracts in this area there is no need to continue the program. Even the governor's office doesn't bother to investigate. If they don't care, why should anyone else? Keep spending that money with the good ole boys, it's ok, no one will do anything about it.
Small businesses will be a minority if they keep up this crap!!
Rediculous, the state is broke and this program does nothing but funnel money to minorities. The job costs more money and you receive poored quality of work from these contractors. Oh well, this is just what the O'Malley's and the dems live for.
9:49, do you have any concrete information to back up your claims? I'm speaking mainly towards "The job costs more money and you receive [poor] quality of work..."
9:38 You have no idea what you are talking about. There is so much documentation that takes place when bidding for a project that requires an MBE goal. You have to send certified letters, make phone calls, and place ads in local papers to find MBE contractors who would be willing to provide a quote. For a project like the WWTP there is not many MBE contractors available. And most of the time the contractors are from the western shore. So they come over here and steal jobs from locals because they are MBE certified. The SHA is very strict about goals and will throw out a bid if they dont have proper documentation for attempting to meet their goal. The only time contractors don't meet the goal is when there is no MBE certified contractors available for a certain trade. The fraud is on the MBE end. We received a letter from a MBE contractor that stated if we gave him a proposal from another contractor (who isn't a MBE) he would mark it up 2 percent and quote it with his company's name so we can meet the MBE goal. That is fraud and he gets away with it. Lets punish the white man... Remember when Mr. King said everyone should be treated equally regardless of race or skin color.. What happened???
As a black man I believe in many of the efforts put forth to reach racial equality. Unfortunately some of these initiatives have done us harm. We have to remember that initiatives such as MBE were put in place because for too long the "good 'ol" boys would intentionally overlook minority firms, despite the ability of these firms to provide comparable services. The same goes for many "affirmative action"-style programs in business and academia. But at this point in time, we should be focusing on providing for the educational needs of the future workers/entrepeneurs so that they are prepared to walk through the doors previously opened by their predecessors. Get the kids on an even playing field, so that they don't need these types of programs to succeed as adults.
Whatever happened to the best man or woman for the job?Affirmative action is racist.
In Somerset County they are making a big deal over minorites not being hired when in fact theres alot of white people not getting county jobs either.The problem there is not racism,but nepotism,yet NAACP's solution is more affirmative action.IF we are supposed to be equal its time to act like it!
Not 9:49, but yes sometimes jobs do cost more with MBE goals. Its a supply and demand type of situation. In some cases, not many MBE contractors are available and their prices tend to be higher. However, a contractor can us a non-MBE contractor if they are cheaper but the contractor will have to go through a lot more paper work and documentation. Most of the time contractors just request prices from MBE contractors. We have some MBE contractors that we work with regardless of goals. But, we have some relationships with non-MBE contractors that we can't stick with because of the MBE required goal. So, if we receive a price from a MBE contractor, who has poor workmanship, that is cheaper than a non-MBE contractor, who has great workmanship and we have a good relationship, we are required to use the MBE subcontrator. So, sometimes quality does suffer.
-10:31/12:40 here
1:02, thanks for the insight.
Bluto,I agree. I can't speak specifically to the local NAACP, but I do get the impression from working directly with the NAACP in the past that SOME in the organization are more concerned with the advancement of any and all "colored people", not just the majority of us who are willing to work hard and sacrifice to get ahead.
12:40, I agree with your last statement. However, the good ole boys are still going strong. Don't think we're quite there yet.
4:10 Please explain your reasoning
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