Senators, business group blast National Harbor contracting
Meeting held to spur new negotiations to include Prince George's-base, minority-owned businesses
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Gazette
by Daniel Valentine | Staff Writer
Senators, business group blast National Harbor contracting
Two Prince George’s County legislators and several county business
owners called for developers of the National Harbor project to renegotiate
minority contracts at the site, saying last week that the $4 billion waterfront
development has not done enough to raise fortunes in Prince George’s
County.
‘‘When you come to our county, get almost $500 million and feel like you have no obligation to the citizens of the county, now that’s what I call a shakedown,” state Sen. C. Anthony Muse (D-Dist. 26) of Fort Washington told a group of about 200 minority business owners at a meeting.
Muse and state Sen. David Harrington (D-Dist. 47) of Cheverly said they began the push for new contracts after hearing from several local business owners who claimed National Harbor developer Milton V. Peterson priced them out of lucrative contracts for parking, telephone installation, real estate sales and restaurants at the Potomac River site.
‘‘We need to sit with them and make them know what is expected of them,” Muse said.
Muse’s remarks led the first meeting at Tantallon Country Club for the Prince George’s County Business and Community Coalition, a resurrected group of minority business advocates who said they plan to pressure National Harbor and other major developments planned in Prince George’s to use local companies.
‘‘People are saying, ‘Be real happy with what is here. Be real happy that you got a sandwich, that we’ve got some new roads,’” Muse said. ‘‘ ... We built the road that goes up to the gate and we can’t go inside there.”
Though the coalition was established by former County Executive Wayne K. Curry in 2000, it was dissolved after Peterson hired a private company to make sure at least 20 percent of the project work went to local and minority businesses. County officials made the percentage requirement a sticking point in exchange for government services, such as roads, water and zoning changes.
Most recent reports show that close to 36 percent of work at National Harbor went to groups that were either based in Prince George’s County or owned by minorities, exceeding the county’s 20 percent minimum. But critics say the developers favored white-owned local businesses and steered most other minority work to groups in Virginia and other areas.
‘‘I went to the opening [April 25]. I went and I looked at every license plate on every limo. Every one was from Virginia,” Muse said. ‘‘That is not acceptable.”
In a report tracking contracts through May 2007, 2.5 percent of contracts went to businesses that were both local and minority-owned, according to critics.
‘‘I want to tell you exactly what happened to you [with National Harbor] — the word is bamboozled,” said Jerry Mathis, real estate agent and president of the coalition. ‘‘We will not go away this time.”
Supporters of National Harbor said the coalition’s accusations are unfounded.
‘‘There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” said Ron Adolph, president of The TAC Companies, a minority-owned consulting company in Fort Washington hired by Peterson to track and ensure minority and local contracting at the site.
The contract the county signed with National Harbor never required businesses to be both local and minority-owned, Adolph and others said.
Adolph said many of the businessmen who attended the meeting went thinking it was a networking event for National Harbor.
‘‘There were some people with good intentions, and there were a few folks who didn’t get what they wanted,” he said.
The meeting featured three testimonials from businessmen who said they lost promised work at National Harbor.
Restaurateur Norman ‘‘Doc” Hayes, said he was encouraged by Peterson to open another location for his business at the harbor when the company first came to the area in 2000. But when Hayes, the owner of Martini’s Restaurant and Lounge in Fort Washington, met formally with the company earlier this year, Hayes said he was told it would cost $70 per square foot to lease a nightclub space at the project, pricing him out of the deal.
‘‘A place like that would cost $35,000 per month — and that’s just your rent. I don’t think that’s possible,” Hayes said.
Officials for Peterson, TAC and Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, the luxury hotel that is serving at the site’s main anchor, all said they have had difficulty finding county-based, minority-owned companies that could handle the scale of the contracts at the major development.
‘‘The capacity of these [local companies] is really much smaller than people realize,” said Adolph, who said that many registered minority-owned businesses in the county have small staffs.
Last week’s meeting also marked one of the first times Muse and Harrington spoke publicly about the legislative battle in the last day of the General Assembly on April 9, when Muse blocked a bill that would have given National Harbor more than 40 pre-approved liquor licenses for future restaurants and clubs.
Muse said he only moved to limit the number of pre-approved licenses after Peterson did not answer his questions about minority contracting at the site throughout the legislative session.
‘‘They wanted ... liquor licenses, and then there was the feeling that I had the audacity to ask, ‘Why do you want that many?’ and ‘What can you do for Prince George’s County?’” Muse said.
Harrington acknowledged that the dispute even resulted in him and Muse meeting with Gov. Martin O’Malley on the last day of the session, when O’Malley allegedly told Muse that cutting back on the licenses could be considered ‘‘a shakedown.”
‘‘We were just asking questions. ... Somehow, when African-American elected officials do the business of oversight, somehow that is different than white officials who do the business of oversight,” Harrington said.
County Executive Jack B. Johnson’s spokesman, James Keary, said the county has encouraged and promoted local businesses to get involved in the project for years.
‘‘The Economic Development Committee did a tremendous amount of outreach,” Keary said. ‘‘There were even classes.”
Keary also emphasized that Peterson and Gaylord have both well exceeded requirements to use local or minority businesses laid out by the County Council.
‘‘[The council members] are the ones who set the standards,” Keary said.
Johnson and officials for National Harbor did not attend the meeting last week and were not invited, they said. Ingrid Turner, the only County Council member who attended, declined to comment.
Johnson declined to comment for this report, but at the recent grand opening for Gaylord, he touted the hundreds of county residents hired to work at National Harbor’s restaurants, hotels and shops.
‘‘Some will get a taste of the first satisfaction of getting a paycheck,” he said.
More than 700 Prince George’s residents have been hired at National Harbor, and new restaurants opening at the site could employ about 250 more, Adolph said.
‘‘It’s really unfortunate,” he said. ‘‘People should be celebrating what’s being accomplished.”
But Harrington said new hires don’t help ensure the long-term economic health of the county. He said officials should demand better of other upcoming projects like Woodmore Towne Center in Landover and the Konterra project in Laurel.
‘‘When you have old money, you can take care of your nonprofits. You can reduce crime. You can take care of your schools,” said Harrington, who added that he wants county residents to move from the ‘‘resume track to the wealth track.”
E-mail Daniel Valentine at dvalentine@gazette.net.