Which Black Buffalo Contractor Wants to Be A Millionaire?

By Betty Jean Grant

Betty Jean Grant

Please forgive, me but I am doing a little 'tongue in cheek' as I write about Black contractors, Buffalo and million dollar contracts, especially million dollar contracts in the construction industry.

I used the language about Black Millionaires because that was what people in the Masiello Administration were telling the Black elected officials, and minority contractors, about the fortune they were going to amass while working on the City of Buffalo and Buffalo Public Schools' Joint School Construction Project. Well, when the tally was done, there were as many Black millionaires created on the school's projects as there were on the Canalside Development Project and the SolarCity Project; and I can safely add, the current Buffalo Bills' Stadium Project. Ladies and gentlemen, the number of minority contractors who became millionaires on any one of the city/county projects listed above is zero!

I am writing about the past, failed projects for Black contractors to gain any meanful employment or resources to inform and warn the African American community to be aware of a project that is promising an unlimited amount of jobs for our communities, but refuses to put the number of workforce jobs set aside for our underserved young workers. Not only is the New York State Department Of Transportation not guaranteeing a specific number of jobs by partnering with community leaders to craft a Community Benefit Agreement to put those job promises in writing, they are not talking about minority construction owners working as subcontractors on the restoration or removal of the 33 Kensington Expressway.

The NYSDOT isn't talking because the billion dollars Expressway Project is a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) and is a 'closed shop' – which means the various, local unions call the shots on who will work and who will not. And, I think I do not need to tell anybody over 50 years old, how hard it was- and still is- for workers in our community to get in and to stay in, mostly all the construction labor unions in the area.

Even though the community group who is touting this toxic project has not gone door to door to see how sick many of the homeowners on Humboldt Parkway are, they are still supporting the construction of a tunnel that will cost twice as much as restoring the trees, make the residents in their houses and the children in 3 nearby schools sicker, the group is still going with supporting the Cap and Stitch project that was sold to them as early as 2005/2006.

The East Side Parkways Coalition has acquired Minutes of community meetings that was attended by the ROCC group and the NYSDOT around 2005 that documented that it was the NYSDOT that purposed the tunnel concept and not the community group, ROCC and certainly not the residents of Humboldt Parkway who were never invited to meetings that was plotting and planning their future.

As it stands right now, all the NYSDOT can offer or guarantee the young folks in our community is the Opportunity to train for a potential job on the construction project because the hiring is done by the unions. Another caveat: Recreational Marijuana is legal in New York State, but it is still deemed illegal by the federal government. The 33 Kensington Expressway is a project under federal guidelines. So, even though you finished the NYSDOT's state's training program, you will not be hired on the Expressway Project unless you can pass the drug test.

The most unfortunate part of the training program is they will not tell you about the mandatory passing of the drug test. So, imagine completing the six weeks' training program and then taking a drug test and failing it because Cannabis showed up in your test results.

This writer believes the training program has a duty and an obligation to inform you that NYS laws on Cannabis does not supersede the federal law that you must test negative for Marijuana and all other drugs the federal government has documented as being illegal.

So, as I go back to reflecting on the numerous times New York State, Erie County and the City of Buffalo have failed on their promises to include minority contractors and workers on public job projects, I am smart enough to learn from past behaviors. There will be no Black Millionaires from neither the Erie County, Buffalo Bills' Stadium Project nor the 33 Kensington Expressway's Toxic Tunnel Project. All there will be are a few low paying-low skilled jobs for a few years and a whole lot of residents still sick and dying while living near an Expressway that should never have been built in the middle of a thriving, east side neighborhood.