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Tishman Speyer 45 Rockefeller Plaza New York,NY10111
EDITORIAL
City comptroller’s MWBE spending report shows government still has work to do
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Last week city Comptroller Scott Stringer’s o ce released a report on city contracting with minority- and women-owned business enterprises for goods and services related to Covid-19 in scal 2021. e results were dismal. According to the report, from March 2020 to July 2021, the city spent over $3.5 billion on such contracts, and only 16% of that money went to MWBEs. e report found that six entities did no Covid-related contracting with MWBEs. e comptroller’s o ce counted NYC Health + Hospitals, the city’s public health system, as one even though it is technically a public bene t corporation. e others
were the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Financial Information Services Agency, the Department of Consumer A airs, the Department of Small Business Services and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. e ndings come after the de Blasio administration has made it a priority to help such businesses win city contracts, establishing the Mayor’s O ce of MWBEs in 2016. As reported in this week’s cover story, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s camp has certi ed more than 10,570 MWBEs across the ve boroughs (up from 3,800 in 2013) and announced a goal of awarding $25 billion in city contracts to such businesses by 2025. Of that amount, the MWBE o ce says, it has doled out $21.3 billion in contracts so far.
As Stringer wrote in his report, though, there were multiple opportunities for city agencies to contract with diverse businesses for Covid supplies. Items such as face masks, disposable gowns, thermometers and hand sanitizers could have been sourced from MWBEs, he said. Many of the agencies quibbled with the ndings, putting forth their own numbers. In response to the report, Magalie Austin, director of the Mayor’s O ce of MWBEs, said: “We are incredibly proud that 25.3% of eligible contracts were awarded to city-certi ed MWBEs during FY21, an increase of approximately $62.5 million compared to FY20.” She said the report used “ awed methodology to paint an unfair picture,” a sentiment echoed by Health + Hospitals o cials.
Although the city government has been doing the work, it’s clear from Stringer’s report that there is still a lot left to do. For some agencies, turning to minority and women vendors is obviously not yet second nature. It’s also clear from the fallout over the report that city agencies are not on the same page about MWBE spending. For this initiative to be truly successful, the agencies must be fully and readily transparent about each dollar that goes out so it can be tracked and the actual impact can be measured.
MWBEs have long complained that the process of securing government contracts has been cloudy and arduous. e only way to showcase that improvements have been made is for all agencies to be aligned in reporting where the money is owing so there is never a question about how the city supports businesses. ■
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OP-ED We need a plan to ease rising gridlock so people can return to work smoothly
BY JEFF FRIEDMAN
New York City is facing the music—the music of honking horns from frustrated drivers who are sitting in more gridlock than ever.
It will only get worse because many people feel more comfortable sitting behind the wheel on their commute rather than taking mass transit. Gridlock already is making our roads less safe; the summer had the highest number of tra c fatalities in the past seven summers.
Just as we have adapted since the pandemic, we must adapt to accelerate the return to the of ce—and we must do it in a way that re ects a balanced approach to overcoming gridlock.
As New York returns as a vibrant, attractive destination for businesses and entrepreneurs, the city has indirectly been asking us to change our behavior. From the conversations around congestion pricing to encourage mass transit to driving during o -peak hours, the city is telling us that tra c is horrible, and we must do something about it, e paradigm of how o ces are used and occupied and how we commute to them has shifted, and in return we must shift. If we do, we can ultimately make the city better and safer.
Here’s how:
•As more individuals return to the o ce, we have to get tra c under control. Schedule exibility is one of the keys to curbing tra c. With the world connected 24/7, the hours become more uid, and our traditional 9-to-5 presence in the o ce becomes less important. • It’s all about the logistics of coordinating deliveries with of ces, companies and businesses so that the majority are not being made during peak daytime hours. is will make our streets more manageable and our businesses more e cient, and it will give more time back to the truck drivers who spend hours circling city streets only to end up double parking.
We can use technology to manage deliveries and schedule them in a way that provides a more balanced approach in this new normal. We are seeing this done around the World Trade Center site and other locations.
According to Department of Transportation gures, more than 89% of goods coming into the city are delivered by truck, and 80% of the commercial activity in Manhattan’s central business district occurs between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
As e-commerce continues to signi cantly increase, adding further strain on our roads, we need to spread out our deliveries better. It’s worth noting that cities from Bogota to London have implemented ambitious overnight delivery programs that have had favorable results. • If we are to get more workers back into the o ce sooner, we need to o er greater exibility on our railroads to the suburbs, where many New Yorkers moved during the pandemic.
For example, the Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road still o er only monthly tickets at a discount. e introduction of a ex pass in which users receive a discount on 10 trips would get the new suburbanites back into the city, increase ridership and encourage schedules to revert to 100% prepandemic levels. It also would help take cars o the road. e future of work will always include the o ce, but to what extent depends on our ability to get gridlock under control. We have the tools to do it. All we need is the drive. ■
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