Mark my words, before the City and State sign off on the final construction and siting agreements for the Convention Center expansion, and for Philadelphia's two, proposed casinos, some very important people in high political office, or on the development/construction side of those projects, will say something like this: "We just can't afford to slow these projects down to spend time talking about black and minority inclusion. There's just too many State funds and too much economic impact at risk."
It's very predictable. Someone says the same thing, every time.
That always strikes me as curious, when people who have been "dragging their feet" for years on a project suddenly get "super time- and schedule-conscious," just because it's time, finally, to bring black folks to the economic table. If it weren't so tragic, it would almost be funny.
I imagine that some of you may very well be familiar with the concept of "C.P. Time." That's the term used to imply that black people, especially, and other "People of Color," generally, just can't manage to arrive promptly for scheduled meetings.
Hey, it's no secret. In today's digital age, there's even a reference to "C.P. Time” on Wikipedia. If you don't believe me, "look it up."
But there is also a whole, other way of measuring timeliness, something I want to call "B.B. and P. Time." For those of you who may not be as familiar with that term, let me "school you." It refers to "Big Business and Political Time." It, too, relates to a habit of being late and not getting things done on a timely basis. But unlike "C.P. Time," "B.B. and P. Time" is measured in weeks, months and, regrettably, even years. In fact, it is often used interchangeably with another time reference we like to use "in the community," i.e., "late and wrong."
In the case of "C.P. Time," the practitioner may arrive at a destination too late to hear the first, few pre-meeting jokes, weather observations or football scores, or they might miss, entirely, the opportunity to have first choice of the best breakfast muffins. With "B.B. and P. Time," on the other hand, the offenders frequently run the risk of losing entire multi-million dollar development projects or forfeiting several years' worth of previously anticipated revenues, through the lack of a commitment to move a project along, on a timely basis.
Strangely, no one seems to be outraged when this phenomenon occurs, again and again, in Philadelphia.
For example, according to media reports, Bob Butera, who was, then, president of the Convention Center, in May 2000, "put a $464.4 million price tag on the Center's proposed expansion" and presented architectural designs to assembled reporters who had come to a press briefing to hear about the project. Then, “B.B. and P. Time” went into effect.
It took until July 2006, more than six years later, to have the first $50 million of State funds for the project forwarded to the Center's board. It took until just this past week to get to the point where bids were finally opened as part of the process to decide which construction firm would actually start building the project. That's been more than eight years since Butera's press announcement, and now the project cost estimate has grown to $790 million.
In another egregious application of "B.B. and P. Time," in December 2006, licenses were granted to developers of two, proposed Philadelphia riverfront casinos - Foxwoods and SugarHouse. That was twenty months ago, and, so far, neither casino has been constructed.
To the casual observer, both City and State decision-makers have "taken their own sweet time" about embracing the potential economic benefits of these three, major development projects-- the Convention Center, a proposed $670 million Foxwoods project and a $550 million SugarHouse project. For those of you who are still counting, that's $2.01 billion in public and private investment that the City's "movers and shakers" can't seem to make happen, at least not on a timely basis.
Let me go a step further.
If we are to believe the economic impact projections from each of the projects, the combined construction phases, alone, will produce somewhere in the area of 4,900 new jobs. In addition, the permanent, new jobs to be created at the completed facilities have been projected at 950 at Foxwoods, 1,100 at SugarHouse and 2,000 new hospitality jobs at the Convention Center expansion. That's a permanent job total of 4050, bringing the total employment impact to 8950 permanent and construction-phase jobs.
None of these figures, of course, includes the millions of dollars in annual purchasing budgets that will exist at these three facilities, the additional economic benefits from the development of new hotels and related businesses that will undoubtedly come on stream to take advantage of their customer traffic.
I don't know, it just seems to me that in a city with a 25.5 percent poverty rate (the highest among the country's 10 largest cities) and a disproportionately high unemployment and crime rate in its impoverished and minority communities, that folks would see that there is definitely a connection between moving these projects, and their related jobs and contract opportunities, along on a timely basis, and our ability to reduce the levels of economic desperation in our neighborhoods.
I don't mind admitting that I have always had a soft spot in my heart for community advocates and for those who stand up for the rights of neighborhood residents. Especially in the case of the proposed casinos, those people have done a great job in defending their communities from the threat of abusive treatment. At the same time, it is well past the time for those same activists, the licensees, State and City elected officials and representatives of the business community to get on the same page, finally, and to make these things happen.
We are losing out every day on opportunities to create meaningful employment for deserving Philadelphia workers and, at the same time, making ourselves look like economic development incompetents to members of the General Assembly and to those in other jurisdictions across the State who have figured out a way to get their own casino projects done on time, through the same State government, through virtually the same Casino Board, under virtually the same rules and regulations.
And remember, as we get closer to finalizing these projects after so many months and years of delay, there can be absolutely no consideration given to those who want to ignore the obvious need for black and minority inclusion at every level and every phase of these projects. All of that was supposed to be a part of the original gaming strategy and Convention Center expansion strategy for Pennsylvania. We, and our elected officials, should have absolutely no patience with those who, all of sudden, want us to believe that they are obligated to adhere strictly to new, inalterable project schedules and that we don't, now, have the luxury of time to appropriately include the critical issues of black and minority workforce and contract participation.
Here is something that Philadelphia needs to seriously consider: No matter how beautiful our newly constructed buildings will be, people are not going to be interested in traveling across the country or around the world to participate in a convention, or to play a “game of chance,” in a city with a growing reputation for crimes of violence and desperation. If we are not concerned about having an inclusive job creation strategy, in a city that is 61 percent comprised of Blacks, Hispanics and Asians, we run the risk of experiencing just that kind of self-defeating scenario.
It's clearly something that every one of us should want to avoid.
It's time to get our act together.
##############
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment