Bump in road for Asian Americans

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
February 1, 2007

Asian Americans would regain the protected status they lost nearly two years ago to qualify for Chicago's construction set-aside contracts, under an ordinance advanced Wednesday.
But there's a caveat: The measure will be held in a City Council committee until the Law Department develops "statistical evidence" to justify the change.

Deputy Corporation Counsel Michael Forti said it's helpful that a federal appeals court has affirmed the Illinois Department of Transportation's decision to include Asian Americans in a federally funded road construction program. But that does not mean Chicago can automatically do the same, as Ald. Bernard Stone (50th) has proposed.

To avoid jeopardizing the entire ordinance, Chicago must prove that Asian Americans here have suffered since they were eliminated from the group of minorities automatically included in a "presumptively socially disadvantaged" group that includes African Americans, Hispanics and women, Forti said.

Forti noted that the IDOT ruling involved a statewide road construction program. Chicago's ordinance includes all construction set-asides in a smaller geographic area. "It's not identical. ... It's not as strong."

Asian-American contractors who testified before the Economic Development Committee came away encouraged by the vote but disappointed about the delay. They argued that they have lost anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent of their business since being stripped of their protected status.

"We've had a lot of general contractors tell us that, 'You're not part of the program, so we're not going to ask you to bid anymore,' " said Eric W. Mah, president of GIM Electric Co., 4150 N. Milwaukee.

"It's silly to say Asians have not been discriminated against. ...On a national level, on a state level, it's presumed. We don't understand why on a very local level we have been excluded."
Across the country -- and as close as Cook County -- minority set-aside ordinances have been overturned in recent years.

In 2003, U.S. District Judge James Moran bucked that trend. In response to a lawsuit filed by the Builders Association of Greater Chicago, he outlined a series of legal deficiencies and gave the city six months to correct the problems.

The City Council followed Moran's legal map to the letter. The revamped ordinance not only included revised set-aside levels of 24 percent for minority contractors and 4 percent for women, it stripped Asian Americans of protected status.

----------
(http://www.suntimes.com/business/238401,CST-FIN-asian01.article )
© Copyright 2007 Sun-Times News Group