nothin New Plan Boosts Minority Contractors | New Haven Independent

New Plan Boosts Minority Contractors

Carpenter Perkins signs up at Tuesday’s launch.

On the first day of school an African-American boy looks about his spanking new classroom, at the shining, newly painted walls, at the neatly sheet-rocked ceiling, and says, My daddy built this.”

Then the Latino girl next to him replies, Yes, and my daddy did all the electrical work.”

That vision of opening day at the city’s next new public school — of the kids of black and Latino contractors taking pride in the work their parents’ small companies did in its construction — emerged at an optimistic gathering of about 100 city officials and hopeful contractors at the New Haven Opportunity Center at 316 Dixwell Ave. Tuesday night.

Abdussabur addresses the group, with Vince Giordano, SCD’s Lil Snyder, Giordano manager Chris Malerbe, and Gilbane Construction’s Robert Lynn behind.

The event’s location—a satellite one-stop-shopping” City Hall launched this year by the Harp Administration— house city’s New Haven Small Business Academy. The event was the launch of a minority business outreach initiative.

The event’s aim: to significantly increase the number of local, minority small contractors who will be ready to bid on the $30 million new home for the Strong School, to be built on Southern Connecticut State University’s campus, when bidding begins next summer or early fall.

The city’s 15-year-old Small Contractor Development (SCD) program has made strides in getting minority and women-contractor firms schooled in required OSHA training for bidding on such jobs, as well as the challenges of providing bonds for construction, finance, and how to participate in the bidding process.Tuesday night’s initiative is taking outreach to a new level,” said Shafiq Abdussabur, the co-founder of a construction and construction management company called Eco Urban Pioneers. Abdussabur (who’s also a cop) teamed his firm up with Giordano Construction Company to win the bid to do the pre-construction and design as well as the construction management of the Strong School project.

So they’ll be hiring. Tuesday night they pledged to reach out to minority subcontractors contractors with a dozen workshops in the run-up to the bidding for small contractors like Jerome Perkins’ carpentry and sheet-rocking company.

The aim is to initiate and maintain communication with people like Jerome Perkins, who has a carpentry and sheet-rocking company and help him get registered with the SCD; to help him gain access to financing; to prepare for the bidding, and to navigate the permit-bonding-insurance process, which is often the most difficult part for small operators.

Giordano’s Carbone and Perkins discuss keeping up the communications.

By law a school construction project in New Haven must spend a minimum of 10 percent of its budget for the work of SCDs, which are usually minority contractors.

Giordano Construction has overseen work on about nine New Haven Schools. On the most recently completed project, the Dr. Reginald Mayo Early Childhood School, the SCDs exceeded 18.9 percent, said Vince Giordano.

Our hope is to exceed that,” added Giordano Construction Manager Chris Malerba.

A key to achieving that will be keeping interested contractors like Perkins constantly in the loop step by step. We’ll be communicating all the way to bid time,” said Giordano.

Other presenters Tuesday night included the Greater New Haven Business and Professional Association, a minority-business advocacy group, which committed to offering a rolling OSHA training class. With certification from that class, no worker can set foot on a construction site.

Among the warmest applause offered by the audience was to the remarks of Amar Shah of RCN Capital. He said his South Windsor-based company has developed a product to help small contractors deal with their cash flow.

You submit to us an invoice, and we pay you within 48 hours so you can pay your vendors, and we [then] get paid by the city. We provide immediate financing, so a contractor can pay his vendors,” he explained.

That was music to the ears of Jerome Perkins, whose 14-year-old small construction has never done work with the city because of all the bureaucratic hassle.

They broke two red tapes,” he said, reviewing the meeting after it concluded. He pointed to the help that a group like Shah’s could offer so he can make payroll to workers like his friend Deon Harris.

He’s got lots of kids to feed. I can’t wait 90 days to pay him,” Perkins said of Harris as he gave his info to Giordano’s Strong School project manager, Meghan Carbone.

The other facet of the night’s offering that particularly appealed is what Abdussabur and other speakers referred to as the contractors’ showcase.” That means they would help minority small contractors team up to bid jointly to obtain larger pieces of the work.

Contractors, clergy, alders, officials filled the room to overflowing.

Perkins said he used to be registered with the SCD but had let that registration lapse. Carbone said she and Giordano were going to use the phone and email blasts to keep people up to speed with the scopes of work to be bid on.

She said she will help with the documentation required to become a registered SCD member. The SCD takes care of the bond for projects up to $100,000, she reminded him.

Perkins said he already handles projects for $100,000 in required bonding. How about providing that for $250,000? he countered. Maybe $500,000?

Carbone said she’d take the idea under advisement.

Perkin said he plans to come to the capacity-building” workshops to be organized by Eco Pioneers/Giordano Construction on the first Tuesday of every month. The first two, dealing with business assessment and preparing for the pre-bid, respectively, are scheduled for Jan. 3 and Feb. 7.

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